Heat supply offers a massive potential to drive progress towards achieving Germany’s climate targets. This requires the implementation of efficient measurements to further reduce the production of greenhouse gases. Despite high energy efficiency standards set out for new and renovated buildings, the modernisation of the old building stock will play an essential role in the transformation of the heat sector as one of the three pillars – power, transport and heat – of the Energiewende. Major challenges for the implementation of measurements will include the long-term nature of investments and the heterogeneous structure of the heat supply system. The latter is characterized by a considerable number of stakeholders with vested interests, an inhomogeneous structure of the current building stock, as well as a variety of technologies available. In addition, the choice for a particular heat system will depend upon current and expected energy costs.
- Aiming at contributing to a timely and holistic modification of the heat sector, the FfE initiates research projects related to the following areas:
- Technology neutral evaluation of costs and emissions from a system related stakeholder view
- Analysis of system feedbacks induced by “sector coupling” effects
- Spatial high resolution potential of grid-based heat supply
- Scheduling of Power-to-Heat plants
- Modeling the current and future building stock
- Refurbishment potential of existing heat technologies
- Potentials for using solar thermal energy
- Generation of synthetic district heating load profiles
Moreover, the FfE has been a reliable partner in the field of energy consulting for many years.
Related projects to the research field of heat supply: