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Cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency improvements for a residential building stock in a Danish district heating area

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Abstract

The residential building stock holds a large energy efficiency improvement potential related to energy upgrading of the building envelope. Details about the heterogeneity of the building stock are paramount to perform a proper assessment of attractive energy efficiency improvements for end-users. Based on a sample of buildings, the study develops methods to identify potentials for heterogeneous building-tailored energy efficiency improvements, to reduce heat consumption, and evaluates their cost-effectiveness in the framework of a district heating area in Denmark. The study accounts for rebound effects and develops both technical (gross) and more realistic (net) potentials, allowing a more accurate analysis of attractive energy efficiency improvements. The analysis is novel as the underlying model relies on building characteristics rather than synthetic archetypes, which can lead to loss of diversity (e.g. in variation of costs and potentials) and thereby discarding cost-effective potentials. The analysis also investigates the sensitivity of the results to assumptions about the discount rate and focuses on the effect of exposing the end-user to different district heating tariffs and the consequent total cost-effective investments. The outcomes show that cost-effective energy efficiency improvements vary considerably, in size and type, among the heterogeneous building stock considered. In regard to district heating tariffs, when all the cost components are variable, the total cost-effective potential increases considerably, with specific energy efficiency improvements distributed differently among building categories, and with the cost components providing different incentives to invest. Heterogeneity, and different tariff policies, thus does matter, when evaluating economically attractive investments in energy efficiency improvements for buildings.

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Notes

  1. The reader can refer to Section “DH tariff structure in Aarhus” for a thorough explanation of the heat cost pc.

  2. This method assumes constant heat savings throughout the lifetime; hence, it disregards any deterioration of the performances in the long term or any changes in expected occupancy and use of the building, which could impact the level of heat savings (Eleftheriadis and Hamdy 2018).

  3. The reader should be aware that such requirements, building regulation and related discounts are often updated, e.g. in 2018 (Affaldvarme Aarhus 2018a; Trafik-, Bygge- og Boligstyrelsen 2018a).

  4. Clarification note: the values represent energy upgrading opportunity elements (energy efficiency improvements). For instance, considering that there is a total of 12.6 K buildings, and 77.5 K energy efficiency improvements as external walls, on average there are 77.5/12.6≃6.2 external wall renovation opportunities for every building. Nonetheless, differences apply for various building categories.

  5. Observing the values in Table 6, it would seem obvious that buildings with EPC label D and E have the largest potential for attractive investments; however, this is due to the distribution of energy efficiency improvements among buildings, presented in Table 2, which is indeed biased.

  6. For instance, notice that the total savings for the “Base (net, left side)” curve in Fig. 15 (i.e. the end of the line) are the same as the one reported in Fig. 11 for the “Base Case (Net)” column: 8.3 GWh.

  7. Compare the number of potential investments in Table 2 and the number of cost-effective investments in Table 6.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Stefan Petrovic, Vignesh Krishnamoorthy and Daniel Sneum Møller for the fruitful discussions, which has surely enhanced the quality of the manuscript.

Funding

The research has been financed by Innovation Fund Denmark under the research project SAVE-E, grant no. 4106-00009B.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark, Produktionstorvet, Building 424, DK-2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Mattia Baldini & Henrik K. Jacobsen

  2. Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University, A.C. Meyers Vænge 15, DK-2450, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Morten Brøgger & Kim B. Wittchen

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  1. Mattia Baldini
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  2. Morten Brøgger
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Correspondence to Mattia Baldini.

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Baldini, M., Brøgger, M., Jacobsen, H.K. et al. Cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency improvements for a residential building stock in a Danish district heating area. Energy Efficiency 13, 1737–1761 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-020-09889-x

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