LARGE-SCALE UTILISATION OF EXCESS HEAT - ASSESSMENT THROUGH REGIONAL MODELLING

Paper i proceeding, 2014

The use of excess heat (EH) in district heating (DH) may contribute to increased sustainability through reduced use of primary energy. In Sweden biomass has become an important DH fuel during the last decades. Currently, there is a strong focus not only on use of biomass in heat and power generation but also for the transport sector. Competition for biomass, as a limited source, is thus likely to lead to higher demand and increasing prices of biomass. This study addresses the long-term system effects and connecting costs of three DH systems though a transmission pipeline that enables an increased use of EH from a large chemical cluster. The assessment is carried out with the optimising energy systems model MARKAL_WS, in which DH systems in the Västra Götaland region of Sweden are represented individually. Options for the production of transport biofuel as one potential competitor for biomass use are also included. The results show that the investment in the pipeline is cost-efficient when our energy system optimization takes both the DH systems and the transport sector into account, resulting in reduced total system cost.