Abstract
This report is the second annual report within the FlexBuild research project and summarises the main findings from the executed research work within the project's second year.
Potential for local (small) and district (large) heating network (chapter 2) In the second year of FlexBuild, the modelling of the Norwegian building stock has been regionally
divided into the current five spot price regions of Norway, NO1 to NO5. Further- more, we have also identified the current status and future potential for buildings being served by district heating. To conclude on this, we had to investigate the geographical potential for district heating supply, as summarized in Figure 1:
1. On the supply side, not all the geographical areas are, or can be served by district heating in the future. This, in turn, resulted in subdividing each electricity market area of Norway into three sub-areas, namely:
• Large-scale district heating (fjernvarme storskala) sub-area, is based on the Statistics Norway definition of "cities". The current district heating plants that generate > 100 GWh/year are defined as large-scale.
• Small-scale district heating (småskala fjernvarme) sub-area, is based on the Statistics Norway definition of "tightly populated areas", and current district heating plants that generate < 100 GWh/year are defined as small-scale.
• No Thermal Network (ingen fjernvarme) sub-area, is based on Statistics Norway's definition of "sparsely populated areas", and for these areas we assume that the heat density is too low to justify the development of thermal networks.
2. On the demand side, not all buildings have, or can have, a waterborne heating system. This, in turn, resulted in the following modelling assumptions and choices:
• The percentage of existing buildings having waterborne heating is ca. 40% for Apartments and ca. 60% for Commercial buildings, based on available statistics on heating technologies and consumed district heating. In new buildings, this is assumed to become ca. 90%, for both Apartments and Commercial buildings.
• The total volume of district heating connection going to residential buildings is allocated to Apartments. This is done to keep overall consistency with the statistics on energy carriers use, while simplifying the modelling. There is just a minor volume of district heating being delivered to single family houses, and at the same time this is not an attractive category for district heating expansion.