ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES IN THE HEATING SECTOR

Abstract

The building sector holds the key potential to fulfill climate protection targets. Decarbonizing the building sector mainly focuses on heating and cooling systems as the primary energy consumers. The pathway to decarbonize the heating sector is by integrating renewable energy sources with the main accent on heat pumps as the most suitable devices to replace the existing conventional ones. The aim of this paper is to provide indicators regarding the feasibility of replacing the heating systems in existing buildings with heat pump(s) and photovoltaic systems for climate and economic conditions in N. Macedonia. The analysis employs a holistic approach of the system model development, using the dynamic simulation software tool TRNSYS. In the reference system defined as base case, two heat sources are considered: electrical energy and wood pellets with hot water radiators as a heating element. The building is modelled with residential profile characteristics with conditioned area of 100 m2 and specific heating energy of 70 kwh/m2. The analysis defines two systems-scenarios: Scenario 1 with heat pump as a heating source and Scenario 2 with heat pump and photovoltaic system. Key performance indicators such as net present value, benefit to cost ratio, payback period etc., are defined to estimate the system’s feasibility compared to the reference system. Sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis is performed to gain real expected results and assess the input parameter uncertainties. The obtained results indicate that it is feasible to integrate heat pump as a heating source in the considered analysis and the combination of heat pump and photovoltaic is feasible only with subsidy at least 20% from the investment cost. Considering future electricity price increase, the feasibility of this system significantly improves, with 1% annual increase, the payback period decreases for 14% and the BCR increases for 9%.