IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v313y2024ics0360544224036764.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Techno-economic analysis of hybrid solar-assisted geothermal and biomass heating systems in remote subarctic communities (Nunavik, Canada)

Author

Listed:
  • Moreno, David
  • Raymond, Jasmin
  • Gosselin, Louis

Abstract

The Nunavik region mainly relies on fuel-oil for their heating needs, leading to high energy costs and sustainability issues. Studies focusing on renewable heating alternatives in remote Canadian regions are limited and have been evaluated under different models and methodologies. This work studied several heating alternatives to meet the heating needs of a building in Nunavik, Canada, to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and overall heating cost. Studied alternatives include biomass furnace and solar-assisted geothermal heat pumps, which were compared to fuel-oil #2 heating. A 50-years life cycle cost (LCC) analysis was carried out for each alternative considering environmental, technical, and economic issues. A strategy of net metering obtaining credits/revenue by injecting PV electricity into the local grid was considered. The LCC analysis shows that a mix of heating systems represents an interesting alternative for Northern Québec with a levelized cost of energy that varies from 0.23 to 0.62 $/kWh, reducing emissions up to 18.9 tons of CO2eq/year. Conventional heating oil system has a comparable cost of 0.20 $/kWh after fuel-oil subsidy and 0.26 $/kWh before subsidy. Results could eventually be extended to similar subarctic settings in Canada and worldwide.

Suggested Citation

  • Moreno, David & Raymond, Jasmin & Gosselin, Louis, 2024. "Techno-economic analysis of hybrid solar-assisted geothermal and biomass heating systems in remote subarctic communities (Nunavik, Canada)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:313:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224036764
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.133898
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224036764
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2024.133898?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. Johan Claesson & Saqib Javed, 2018. "Explicit Multipole Formulas for Calculating Thermal Resistance of Single U-Tube Ground Heat Exchangers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Maranghi, Florian & Gosselin, Louis & Raymond, Jasmin & Bourbonnais, Martin, 2023. "Modeling of solar-assisted ground-coupled heat pumps with or without batteries in remote high north communities," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 484-498.
    3. 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.
    4. Antoine Paquet & Geneviève Cloutier & Myriam Blais, 2021. "Renewable Energy as a Catalyst for Equity? Integrating Inuit Interests With Nunavik Energy Planning," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 338-350.
    5. Stephen, James D. & Mabee, Warren E. & Pribowo, Amadeus & Pledger, Sean & Hart, Randy & Tallio, Sheldon & Bull, Gary Q., 2016. "Biomass for residential and commercial heating in a remote Canadian aboriginal community," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 563-575.
    6. Saghar Sadaghiani & Fereshteh Mafakheri & Zhi Chen, 2023. "Life Cycle Assessment of Bioenergy Production Using Wood Pellets: A Case Study of Remote Communities in Canada," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-14, July.
    7. Mafalda M. Miranda & Jasmin Raymond & Chrystel Dezayes, 2020. "Uncertainty and Risk Evaluation of Deep Geothermal Energy Source for Heat Production and Electricity Generation in Remote Northern Regions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-35, August.
    8. Lu, Qi & Narsilio, Guillermo A. & Aditya, Gregorius Riyan & Johnston, Ian W., 2017. "Economic analysis of vertical ground source heat pump systems in Melbourne," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 107-117.
    9. Cervantes, Jairo & Choobineh, Fred, 2018. "Optimal sizing of a nonutility-scale solar power system and its battery storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 105-115.
    10. You, Tian & Wu, Wei & Shi, Wenxing & Wang, Baolong & Li, Xianting, 2016. "An overview of the problems and solutions of soil thermal imbalance of ground-coupled heat pumps in cold regions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 515-536.
    11. Fereshteh Mafakheri & Dotun Adebanjo & Audley Genus, 2021. "Coordinating biomass supply chains for remote communities: a comparative analysis of non-cooperative and cooperative scenarios," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(15), pages 4615-4632, August.
    12. Daniel J. Sambor & Michelle Wilber & Erin Whitney & Mark Z. Jacobson, 2020. "Development of a Tool for Optimizing Solar and Battery Storage for Container Farming in a Remote Arctic Microgrid," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-18, October.
    13. Gunawan, Evelyn & Giordano, Nicolò & Jensson, Páll & Newson, Juliet & Raymond, Jasmin, 2020. "Alternative heating systems for northern remote communities: Techno-economic analysis of ground-coupled heat pumps in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Canada," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(P1), pages 1540-1553.
    14. Antoine Paquet & Geneviève Cloutier & Myriam Blais, 2021. "Renewable Energy as a Catalyst for Equity? Integrating Inuit Interests With Nunavik Energy Planning," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 338-350.
    15. Ahmadfard, Mohammadamin & Bernier, Michel, 2019. "A review of vertical ground heat exchanger sizing tools including an inter-model comparison," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 247-265.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Salimi, Mohammad & Faramarzi, Davoud & Hosseinian, Seyed Hossein & Gharehpetian, Gevork B., 2020. "Replacement of natural gas with electricity to improve seismic service resilience: An application to domestic energy utilities in Iran," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Min-Hwi Kim & Deuk-Won Kim & Gwangwoo Han & Jaehyeok Heo & Dong-Won Lee, 2021. "Ground Source and Sewage Water Source Heat Pump Systems for Block Heating and Cooling Network," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-22, September.
    3. 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).
    4. Ayaz, Hassam & Faizal, Mohammed & Bouazza, Abdelmalek, 2024. "Energy, economic, and carbon emission analysis of a residential building with an energy pile system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    5. Amirreza Delazar & Eric Hu & Andrei Kotousov, 2025. "New Concept of a Ground-Source Refrigeration and Air Conditioning System with Cross-Seasonal Energy Storage Capability," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-23, February.
    6. Lazaros Aresti & Paul Christodoulides & Gregoris P. Panayiotou & Georgios Florides, 2020. "Residential Buildings’ Foundations as a Ground Heat Exchanger and Comparison among Different Types in a Moderate Climate Country," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-22, November.
    7. Wang, Yubo & Quan, Zhenhua & Zhao, Yaohua & Rosengarten, Gary & Mojiri, Ahmad, 2025. "Feasibility and performance of coupled air-ground source heat pump systems with thermal storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    8. Joanna Piotrowska-Woroniak, 2021. "Assessment of Ground Regeneration around Borehole Heat Exchangers between Heating Seasons in Cold Climates: A Case Study in Bialystok (NE, Poland)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-32, August.
    9. Coninx, Matthijs & Nies, Jarne De & Hermans, Louis & Peere, Wouter & Boydens, Wim & Helsen, Lieve, 2024. "Cost-efficient cooling of buildings by means of geothermal borefields with active and passive cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 355(C).
    10. Joanna Piotrowska-Woroniak, 2021. "Determination of the Selected Wells Operational Power with Borehole Heat Exchangers Operating in Real Conditions, Based on Experimental Tests," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-21, April.
    11. Aminhossein Jahanbin & Giovanni Semprini & Andrea Natale Impiombato & Cesare Biserni & Eugenia Rossi di Schio, 2020. "Effects of the Circuit Arrangement on the Thermal Performance of Double U-Tube Ground Heat Exchangers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-19, June.
    12. Nikitin, Andrey & Farahnak, Mehdi & Deymi-Dashtebayaz, Mahdi & Muraveinikov, Sergei & Nikitina, Veronika & Nazeri, Reza, 2022. "Effect of ice thickness and snow cover depth on performance optimization of ground source heat pump based on the energy, exergy, economic and environmental analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1301-1317.
    13. Stylianou, Iosifina Iosif & Florides, Georgios & Tassou, Savvas & Tsiolakis, Efthymios & Christodoulides, Paul, 2017. "Methodology for estimating the ground heat absorption rate of Ground Heat Exchangers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 258-270.
    14. Ma, Chenshuo & Zhang, Yifei & Ma, Keni & Li, Chanyun, 2023. "Study on the relationship between service scale and investment cost of energy service stations," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    15. Luo, Zhenyu & Zhu, Na & Yu, Zhongyi & Zhang, Qin & Yan, Lei & Hu, Pingfang, 2024. "Performance study of dual-source heat pump integrated with radiation capillary terminal system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    16. Wang, Gaosheng & Song, Xianzhi & Shi, Yu & Yang, Ruiyue & Yulong, Feixue & Zheng, Rui & Li, Jiacheng, 2021. "Heat extraction analysis of a novel multilateral-well coaxial closed-loop geothermal system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 974-986.
    17. Tomasz Sliwa & Kinga Jarosz & Marc A. Rosen & Anna Sojczyńska & Aneta Sapińska-Śliwa & Andrzej Gonet & Karolina Fąfera & Tomasz Kowalski & Martyna Ciepielowska, 2020. "Influence of Rotation Speed and Air Pressure on the Down the Hole Drilling Velocity for Borehole Heat Exchanger Installation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-18, May.
    18. Bakirci, Kadir & Colak, Derya, 2012. "Effect of a superheating and sub-cooling heat exchanger to the performance of a ground source heat pump system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 996-1004.
    19. Nguyen, Hiep V. & Law, Ying Lam E. & Alavy, Masih & Walsh, Philip R. & Leong, Wey H. & Dworkin, Seth B., 2014. "An analysis of the factors affecting hybrid ground-source heat pump installation potential in North America," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 28-38.
    20. Cruz-Peragón, F. & Gómez-de la Cruz, F.J. & Palomar-Carnicero, J.M. & López-García, R., 2022. "Optimal design of a hybrid ground source heat pump for an official building with thermal load imbalance and limited space for the ground heat exchanger," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 381-394.

    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:313:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224036764. 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.