IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v81y2015icp317-327.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating the energy and CO2 emissions impacts of shifts in residential water heating in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Sanders, Kelly T.
  • Webber, Michael E.

Abstract

Water heating represented nearly 13% of 2010 residential energy consumption making it an important target for energy conservation efforts. The objective of this work is to identify spatially-resolved strategies for energy conservation, since little analysis has been done to identify how regional characteristics affect the energy consumed for water heating. We present a first-order thermodynamic analysis, utilizing ab initio calculations and regression methods, to quantify primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions with regional specificity by considering by considering local electricity mixes, heat rates, solar radiation profiles, heating degrees days, and water heating unit sales for 27 regions of the US. Results suggest that shifting from electric towards natural gas or solar water heating offered primary energy and CO2 emission reductions in most US regions, but these reductions varied considerably according to regional electricity mix and solar resources. We find that regions that would benefit most from technology transitions, are often least likely to switch due to limited economic incentives. Our results suggest that federal energy factor metrics, which ignore upstream losses in power generation, are insufficient in informing consumers about the energy performance of residential end use appliances.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanders, Kelly T. & Webber, Michael E., 2015. "Evaluating the energy and CO2 emissions impacts of shifts in residential water heating in the United States," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 317-327.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:81:y:2015:i:c:p:317-327
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2014.12.045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214014170
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2014.12.045?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Široký, Jan & Oldewurtel, Frauke & Cigler, Jiří & Prívara, Samuel, 2011. "Experimental analysis of model predictive control for an energy efficient building heating system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(9), pages 3079-3087.
    2. Cassard, Hannah & Denholm, Paul & Ong, Sean, 2011. "Technical and economic performance of residential solar water heating in the United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(8), pages 3789-3800.
    3. Kwan, Calvin Lee, 2012. "Influence of local environmental, social, economic and political variables on the spatial distribution of residential solar PV arrays across the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 332-344.
    4. Grieve, Campbell & Lawson, Rob & Henry, James, 2012. "Understanding the non-adoption of energy efficient hot water systems in New Zealand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 369-373.
    5. Li, Danny H.W. & Yang, Liu & Lam, Joseph C., 2013. "Zero energy buildings and sustainable development implications – A review," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-10.
    6. Arano, Kathleen & Velikova, Marieta, 2010. "Estimating the long-run equilibrium relationship: The case of city-gate and residential natural gas prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 901-907, July.
    7. Krasko, Vitaliy A. & Doris, Elizabeth, 2013. "State distributed PV policies: Can low cost (to government) policies have a market impact?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 172-181.
    8. Pan, Tze-Chin & Kao, Jehng-Jung & Wong, Chih-Po, 2012. "Effective solar radiation based benefit and cost analyses for solar water heater development in Taiwan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 1874-1882.
    9. Baskaran, Ramesh & Managi, Shunsuke & Bendig, Mirko, 2013. "A public perspective on the adoption of microgeneration technologies in New Zealand: A multivariate probit approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 177-188.
    10. Raisul Islam, M. & Sumathy, K. & Ullah Khan, Samee, 2013. "Solar water heating systems and their market trends," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 1-25.
    11. Shukla, Ruchi & Sumathy, K. & Erickson, Phillip & Gong, Jiawei, 2013. "Recent advances in the solar water heating systems: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 173-190.
    12. Bryan Bollinger & Kenneth Gillingham, 2012. "Peer Effects in the Diffusion of Solar Photovoltaic Panels," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 900-912, November.
    13. Yamaguchi, Yohei & Akai, Kenju & Shen, Junyi & Fujimura, Naoki & Shimoda, Yoshiyuki & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi, 2013. "Prediction of photovoltaic and solar water heater diffusion and evaluation of promotion policies on the basis of consumers’ choices," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1148-1159.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. White, Philip R. & Rhodes, Joshua D. & Wilson, Eric J.H. & Webber, Michael E., 2021. "Quantifying the impact of residential space heating electrification on the Texas electric grid," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    2. Wakeel, Muhammad & Chen, Bin & Hayat, Tasawar & Alsaedi, Ahmed & Ahmad, Bashir, 2016. "Energy consumption for water use cycles in different countries: A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 868-885.
    3. Hao Li & Yuhuan Zhao & Jiang Lin, 2020. "A review of the energy–carbon–water nexus: Concepts, research focuses, mechanisms, and methodologies," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), January.
    4. Elena Helerea & Marius D. Calin & Cristian Musuroi, 2023. "Water Energy Nexus and Energy Transition—A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-31, February.
    5. Fan, Jing-Li & Kong, Ling-Si & Wang, Hang & Zhang, Xian, 2019. "A water-energy nexus review from the perspective of urban metabolism," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 392(C), pages 128-136.
    6. Bors, Julijana & O’Brien, Katherine R. & Kenway, Steven J. & Lant, Paul A., 2017. "Regional-scale variability of cold water temperature: Implications for household water-related energy demand," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 107-115.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lin, W.M. & Chang, K.C. & Chung, K.M., 2015. "Payback period for residential solar water heaters in Taiwan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 901-906.
    2. Keh-Chin Chang & Wei-Min Lin & Kung-Ming Chung, 2015. "Sustainable Development for Solar Heating Systems in Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-15, February.
    3. Lemay, Amélie C. & Wagner, Sigurd & Rand, Barry P., 2023. "Current status and future potential of rooftop solar adoption in the United States," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    4. Crago, Christine L. & Koegler, Eric, 2018. "Drivers of growth in commercial-scale solar PV capacity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 481-491.
    5. Ge, T.S. & Wang, R.Z. & Xu, Z.Y. & Pan, Q.W. & Du, S. & Chen, X.M. & Ma, T. & Wu, X.N. & Sun, X.L. & Chen, J.F., 2018. "Solar heating and cooling: Present and future development," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1126-1140.
    6. Chelsea Schelly & James C. Letzelter, 2020. "Examining the Key Drivers of Residential Solar Adoption in Upstate New York," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-13, March.
    7. Mostafaeipour, Ali & Zarezade, Marjan & Goudarzi, Hossein & Rezaei-Shouroki, Mostafa & Qolipour, Mojtaba, 2017. "Investigating the factors on using the solar water heaters for dry arid regions: A case study," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 157-166.
    8. Casanovas-Rubio, Maria del Mar & Armengou, Jaume, 2018. "Decision-making tool for the optimal selection of a domestic water-heating system considering economic, environmental and social criteria: Application to Barcelona (Spain)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 741-753.
    9. Gaigalis, Vygandas & Skema, Romualdas & Marcinauskas, Kazys & Korsakiene, Irena, 2016. "A review on Heat Pumps implementation in Lithuania in compliance with the National Energy Strategy and EU policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 841-858.
    10. Wei-Min Lin & Keh-Chin Chang & Kung-Ming Chung, 2019. "The Impact of Subsidy Programs for Solar Thermal Applications: A Case Study for a Remote Island," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-11, October.
    11. Zhang, Jianhua & Ballas, Dimitris & Liu, Xiaolong, 2023. "Neighbourhood-level spatial determinants of residential solar photovoltaic adoption in the Netherlands," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 1239-1248.
    12. Hsu, Jenneille Hwai-Yuan, 2018. "Predictors for adoption of local solar approval processes and impact on residential solar installations in California cities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 463-472.
    13. Balcombe, Paul & Rigby, Dan & Azapagic, Adisa, 2014. "Investigating the importance of motivations and barriers related to microgeneration uptake in the UK," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 403-418.
    14. Crago, Christine Lasco & Chernyakhovskiy, Ilya, 2017. "Are policy incentives for solar power effective? Evidence from residential installations in the Northeast," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 132-151.
    15. Alipour, M. & Salim, H. & Stewart, Rodney A. & Sahin, Oz, 2020. "Predictors, taxonomy of predictors, and correlations of predictors with the decision behaviour of residential solar photovoltaics adoption: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    16. Klein, Martin & Deissenroth, Marc, 2017. "When do households invest in solar photovoltaics? An application of prospect theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 270-278.
    17. Briguglio, Marie & Formosa, Glenn, 2017. "When households go solar: Determinants of uptake of a Photovoltaic Scheme and policy insights," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 154-162.
    18. Michael-Allan Millar & Bruce Elrick & Greg Jones & Zhibin Yu & Neil M. Burnside, 2020. "Roadblocks to Low Temperature District Heating," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-21, November.
    19. Palm, Alvar & Lantz, Björn, 2020. "Information dissemination and residential solar PV adoption rates: The effect of an information campaign in Sweden," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    20. Sara Ghaboulian Zare & Reza Hafezi & Mohammad Alipour & Reza Parsaei Tabar & Rodney A. Stewart, 2021. "Residential Solar Water Heater Adoption Behaviour: A Review of Economic and Technical Predictors and Their Correlation with the Adoption Decision," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-26, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:81:y:2015:i:c:p:317-327. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.