IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v15y2022i7p2375-d778562.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heat Pumps, Wood Biomass and Fossil Fuel Solutions in the Renovation of Buildings: A Techno-Economic Analysis Applied to Piedmont Region (NW Italy)

Author

Listed:
  • Edoardo Ruffino

    (Politecnico di Torino—Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI), Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy)

  • Bruno Piga

    (Politecnico di Torino—Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI), Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy)

  • Alessandro Casasso

    (Politecnico di Torino—Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI), Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy)

  • Rajandrea Sethi

    (Politecnico di Torino—Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering (DIATI), Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy)

Abstract

The levelized cost of heat (LCOH) and the technical feasibility in the specific context of building construction or renovation are the major drivers of users’ choices for space heating and cooling solutions. In this work, the LCOH was assessed for the most diffused heating technologies in Piedmont (NW Italy): that is, fossil fuels (methane, heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas—LPG), wood biomass (wood logs and pellet) and heat pumps (air-source and ground-source), both in heating-only and in a heating and cooling configuration. A sensitivity analysis of the main LCOH drivers was performed to assess whether and how each technology is vulnerable to energy price and upfront cost changes. The results show that heat pumps are competitive against gas boilers, but they are heavily dependent on refurbishment incentives and penalized by the high electricity prices in Italy; on the other hand, wood biomasses are competitive even in the absence of incentives. The analysis confirmed that LPG and heating oil are no more competitive with renewable heating. Acting on the taxation of natural gas and electricity is key to making heat pumps the most economically convenient solution to cover the heating and cooling needs of buildings.

Suggested Citation

  • Edoardo Ruffino & Bruno Piga & Alessandro Casasso & Rajandrea Sethi, 2022. "Heat Pumps, Wood Biomass and Fossil Fuel Solutions in the Renovation of Buildings: A Techno-Economic Analysis Applied to Piedmont Region (NW Italy)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-25, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:7:p:2375-:d:778562
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2375/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/7/2375/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Bartolini & Alessandro Casasso & Carlo Bianco & Rajandrea Sethi, 2020. "Environmental and Economic Impact of the Antifreeze Agents in Geothermal Heat Exchangers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-18, October.
    2. Koengkan, Matheus & Fuinhas, José Alberto & Osmani, Fariba & Kazemzadeh, Emad & Auza, Anna & Alavijeh, Nooshin Karimi & Teixeira, Mônica, 2022. "Do financial and fiscal incentive policies increase the energy efficiency ratings in residential properties? A piece of empirical evidence from Portugal," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    3. Renaldi, Renaldi & Hall, Richard & Jamasb, Tooraj & Roskilly, Anthony P., 2021. "Experience rates of low-carbon domestic heating technologies in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Borna Doračić & Tomislav Novosel & Tomislav Pukšec & Neven Duić, 2018. "Evaluation of Excess Heat Utilization in District Heating Systems by Implementing Levelized Cost of Excess Heat," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-14, March.
    5. Timilsina, Govinda R., 2021. "Are renewable energy technologies cost competitive for electricity generation?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 658-672.
    6. Ballarini, Ilaria & Corgnati, Stefano Paolo & Corrado, Vincenzo, 2014. "Use of reference buildings to assess the energy saving potentials of the residential building stock: The experience of TABULA project," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 273-284.
    7. Alessandro Casasso & Pietro Capodaglio & Fulvio Simonetto & Rajandrea Sethi, 2019. "Environmental and Economic Benefits from the Phase-out of Residential Oil Heating: A Study from the Aosta Valley Region (Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-16, July.
    8. Poponi, Daniele & Basosi, Riccardo & Kurdgelashvili, Lado, 2021. "Subsidisation cost analysis of renewable energy deployment: A case study on the Italian feed-in tariff programme for photovoltaics," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    9. Vering, Christian & Maier, Laura & Breuer, Katharina & Krützfeldt, Hannah & Streblow, Rita & Müller, Dirk, 2022. "Evaluating heat pump system design methods towards a sustainable heat supply in residential buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    10. Malico, Isabel & Nepomuceno Pereira, Ricardo & Gonçalves, Ana Cristina & Sousa, Adélia M.O., 2019. "Current status and future perspectives for energy production from solid biomass in the European industry," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 960-977.
    11. Lafond, François & Bailey, Aimee Gotway & Bakker, Jan David & Rebois, Dylan & Zadourian, Rubina & McSharry, Patrick & Farmer, J. Doyne, 2018. "How well do experience curves predict technological progress? A method for making distributional forecasts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 104-117.
    12. José Alberto Fuinhas & Matheus Koengkan & Nuno Silva & Emad Kazemzadeh & Anna Auza & Renato Santiago & Mônica Teixeira & Fariba Osmani, 2022. "The Impact of Energy Policies on the Energy Efficiency Performance of Residential Properties in Portugal," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-24, January.
    13. Nis Bertelsen & Brian Vad Mathiesen, 2020. "EU-28 Residential Heat Supply and Consumption: Historical Development and Status," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-21, April.
    14. Reber, Timothy J. & Beckers, Koenraad F. & Tester, Jefferson W., 2014. "The transformative potential of geothermal heating in the U.S. energy market: A regional study of New York and Pennsylvania," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 30-44.
    15. Atalla, Tarek & Gualdi, Silvio & Lanza, Alessandro, 2018. "A global degree days database for energy-related applications," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 1048-1055.
    16. Antonio Novelli & Valentina D’Alonzo & Simon Pezzutto & Rubén Aarón Estrada Poggio & Alessandro Casasso & Pietro Zambelli, 2021. "A Spatially-Explicit Economic and Financial Assessment of Closed-Loop Ground-Source Geothermal Heat Pumps: A Case Study for the Residential Buildings of Valle d’Aosta Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-22, November.
    17. Connor, Peter M. & Xie, Lei & Lowes, Richard & Britton, Jessica & Richardson, Thomas, 2015. "The development of renewable heating policy in the United Kingdom," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 733-744.
    18. Martinopoulos, Georgios & Papakostas, Konstantinos T. & Papadopoulos, Agis M., 2018. "A comparative review of heating systems in EU countries, based on efficiency and fuel cost," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 687-699.
    19. Blum, Philipp & Campillo, Gisela & Kölbel, Thomas, 2011. "Techno-economic and spatial analysis of vertical ground source heat pump systems in Germany," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 3002-3011.
    20. Alessandro Casasso & Marta Puleo & Deborah Panepinto & Mariachiara Zanetti, 2021. "Economic Viability and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Budget of the Biomethane Retrofit of Manure-Operated Biogas Plants: A Case Study from Piedmont, Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-18, July.
    21. Filippini, Massimo & Hunt, Lester C. & Zorić, Jelena, 2014. "Impact of energy policy instruments on the estimated level of underlying energy efficiency in the EU residential sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 73-81.
    22. Doračić, Borna & Pukšec, Tomislav & Schneider, Daniel Rolph & Duić, Neven, 2020. "The effect of different parameters of the excess heat source on the levelized cost of excess heat," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    23. Shen, Wei & Chen, Xi & Qiu, Jing & Hayward, Jennifier A & Sayeef, Saad & Osman, Peter & Meng, Ke & Dong, Zhao Yang, 2020. "A comprehensive review of variable renewable energy levelized cost of electricity," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    24. Luo, Jin & Zhang, Yuhao & Rohn, Joachim, 2020. "Analysis of thermal performance and drilling costs of borehole heat exchanger (BHE) in a river deposited area," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 392-402.
    25. Vivian, Jacopo & Emmi, Giuseppe & Zarrella, Angelo & Jobard, Xavier & Pietruschka, Dirk & De Carli, Michele, 2018. "Evaluating the cost of heat for end users in ultra low temperature district heating networks with booster heat pumps," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 788-800.
    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. Fabian Ochs & William Monteleone & Georgios Dermentzis & Dietmar Siegele & Christoph Speer, 2022. "Compact Decentral Façade-Integrated Air-to-Air Heat Pumps for Serial Renovation of Multi-Apartment Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-30, June.
    2. Valentyna Stanytsina & Volodymyr Artemchuk & Olga Bogoslavska & Artur Zaporozhets & Antonina Kalinichenko & Jan Stebila & Valerii Havrysh & Dariusz Suszanowicz, 2022. "Fossil Fuel and Biofuel Boilers in Ukraine: Trends of Changes in Levelized Cost of Heat," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-18, September.
    3. Agata Ołtarzewska & Dorota Anna Krawczyk, 2022. "Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Heating Costs and Pollutant Emissions in a Cold Climate Based on the Example of a Service Building Located in Bialystok," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-13, December.

    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. Matheus Koengkan & Nuno Silva & José Alberto Fuinhas, 2023. "Assessing Energy Performance Certificates for Buildings: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of Portuguese Municipalities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-30, April.
    2. Matheus Koengkan & José Alberto Fuinhas & Anna Auza & Uğur Ursavaş, 2023. "The Impact of Energy Efficiency Regulations on Energy Poverty in Residential Dwellings in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area: An Empirical Investigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-29, February.
    3. Pažėraitė, Aušra & Lekavičius, Vidas & Gatautis, Ramūnas, 2022. "District heating system as the infrastructure for competition among producers in the heat market," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    4. Davide Menegazzo & Giulia Lombardo & Sergio Bobbo & Michele De Carli & Laura Fedele, 2022. "State of the Art, Perspective and Obstacles of Ground-Source Heat Pump Technology in the European Building Sector: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-25, April.
    5. Marcin Klimczak & Grzegorz Bartnicki & Piotr Ziembicki, 2022. "Energy Consumption by DHW System with a Circulation Loop as an Energy Efficiency Component, Based on an Example of a Residential Building," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-18, May.
    6. Xia, Z.H. & Jia, G.S. & Ma, Z.D. & Wang, J.W. & Zhang, Y.P. & Jin, L.W., 2021. "Analysis of economy, thermal efficiency and environmental impact of geothermal heating system based on life cycle assessments," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    7. Matheus Koengkan & José Alberto Fuinhas, 2022. "Heterogeneous Effect of “Eco-Friendly” Dwellings on Transaction Prices in Real Estate Market in Portugal," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-18, September.
    8. Lester C. Hunt & Paraskevas Kipouros, 2023. "Energy Demand and Energy Efficiency in Developing Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-26, January.
    9. Guzović, Zvonimir & Duic, Neven & Piacentino, Antonio & Markovska, Natasa & Mathiesen, Brian Vad & Lund, Henrik, 2022. "Recent advances in methods, policies and technologies at sustainable energy systems development," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    10. Somossy, Éva Szabina, 2022. "A magyar Metár-tenderek nemzetközi ár-összehasonlító elemzése [International price comparison of Hungarian renewable tenders]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 572-596.
    11. Romanov, D. & Leiss, B., 2022. "Geothermal energy at different depths for district heating and cooling of existing and future building stock," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    12. Matheus Koengkan & José Alberto Fuinhas & Magdalena Radulescu & Emad Kazemzadeh & Nooshin Karimi Alavijeh & Renato Santiago & Mônica Teixeira, 2023. "Assessing the Role of Financial Incentives in Promoting Eco-Friendly Houses in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area—Portugal," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-20, February.
    13. Hans Schwarz & Nikola Jocic & David Bertermann, 2022. "Development of a Calculation Concept for Mapping Specific Heat Extraction for Very Shallow Geothermal Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-18, April.
    14. Luo, Jin & Li, Peijia & Yan, Zezhou & Wu, Yungang, 2022. "An integrated 3D method to assess the application potential of GWHP systems in fluvial deposit areas," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 631-644.
    15. Bartnicki, Grzegorz & Klimczak, Marcin & Ziembicki, Piotr, 2023. "Evaluation of the effects of optimization of gas boiler burner control by means of an innovative method of Fuel Input Factor," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PD).
    16. Matheus Koengkan & José Alberto Fuinhas & Fernanda Paula Oliveira & Uğur Ursavaş & Natália Moreno, 2023. "Building a Sustainable Future: How Eco-Friendly Homes Are Driving Local Economic Development in Lisbon Metropolitan Area," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-34, June.
    17. Lundgren, Tommy & Marklund, Per-Olov & Zhang, Shanshan, 2016. "Industrial energy demand and energy efficiency – Evidence from Sweden," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 130-152.
    18. Zoe Mayer & Julia Heuer & Rebekka Volk & Frank Schultmann, 2021. "Aerial Thermographic Image-Based Assessment of Thermal Bridges Using Representative Classifications and Calculations," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-43, November.
    19. Giuseppe Maggiotto & Gianpiero Colangelo & Marco Milanese & Arturo de Risi, 2023. "Thermochemical Technologies for the Optimization of Olive Wood Biomass Energy Exploitation: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-17, September.
    20. Dorothee Charlier and Sondes Kahouli, 2019. "From Residential Energy Demand to Fuel Poverty: Income-induced Non-linearities in the Reactions of Households to Energy Price Fluctuations," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).

    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:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:7:p:2375-:d:778562. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.