The Balance between Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for District Renovations in Denmark

Emissions can be reduced by increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and supply systems or increasing the share of renewable energy in the energy system. Denmark has a long tradition for district heating and today it supplies more than 65% of dwellings, which indicates that a major part of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables can be achieved at the supply system level rather than on the individual building level. This paper presents calculations performed on a generic Danish district undergoing major renovation. The generic district is based on an existing district in Aalborg and consists of 1019 dwellings spread over three different building typologies. The purpose of the investigation was to determine which combination of energy saving measures would achieve the optimal level of energy efficiency. Calculations were made with average data for district heating in Denmark, district heating based on natural gas, and district heating from renewable energy sources, such as solar heating, biofuels, and heat pumps, respectively. The calculations include costs for investment, maintenance, and operating as a function of the primary energy needs. Global warming potential (GWP) was calculated and included CO2 emissions from space heating, domestic hot water, and electricity for operation and household. The calculations show that for the generic Danish district, which is already connected to a district heating network, the optimal solution is to add 200 mm insulation to roofs (in total 300 mm) and 150 mm insulation to walls (in total 200 mm) and replacing the existing windows with new three-layer low energy windows. Furthermore, the calculations show that in a future scenario with a significantly higher level of renewable energy in the energy system, a shift to individual heat pumps can reduce total emissions by up to 1.5 kg CO2 eq/m2 per year (20% reduction) at an additional cost of EUR 8.0/m2 per year (40% increase). The calculations described in this paper are part of a larger investigation carried out in IEA EBC Annex 75

Cost-effective building renovation strategies at the district level combining energy efficiency & renewables – investigation based on parametric calculations with generic districts

Informe generado en el marco del Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme de la International Energy AgencyThis report aims to study cost-effective strategies to combine energy efficiency measures and renewable energy use in building renovation at the district level and to investigate factors influencing the choice of a cost-effective strategy. This is done through generic district assessments, where hypothetical, “generic” districts are generated to model typical conditions in various European countries. For the generic districts, relevant variables were defined to carry out parametric assessments, applying and testing the methodology developed in IEA EBC Annex 75. The generic districts were generated and selected based on the typical conditions in each country, and the hypothetical nature of the assessment allowed for studying different starting conditions and renovation measures. It is, in particular, investigated to what extent there are synergies and trade-offs for combining energy efficiency measures and renewable energy measure