IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcli/v12y2022i8d10.1038_s41558-022-01429-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decarbonization pathways for the residential sector in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Berrill

    (Yale University
    Technische Universität Berlin
    Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change)

  • Eric J. H. Wilson

    (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Janet L. Reyna

    (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Anthony D. Fontanini

    (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

  • Edgar G. Hertwich

    (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

Residential GHG emissions in the United States are driven in part by a housing stock where onsite fossil combustion is common, home sizes are large by international standards, energy efficiency potential is large and electricity generation in many regions is GHG intensive. In this analysis, we assess decarbonization pathways for the US residential sector to 2060, through 108 scenarios describing housing stock evolution, new housing characteristics, renovation levels and clean electricity. The lowest emission pathways involve very rapid decarbonization of electricity supply alongside extensive renovations to existing homes, including improving thermal envelopes and heat pump electrification of heating. Reducing the size and increasing the electrification of new homes provide further emission cuts and combining all strategies enables reductions of 91% between 2020 and 2050. The potential of individual mitigation strategies shows great regional variation. Reaching zero emissions will require simultaneous deployment of multiple strategies and greater reduction of embodied emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Berrill & Eric J. H. Wilson & Janet L. Reyna & Anthony D. Fontanini & Edgar G. Hertwich, 2022. "Decarbonization pathways for the residential sector in the United States," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(8), pages 712-718, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:8:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01429-y
    DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01429-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01429-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41558-022-01429-y?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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Alina Galimshina & Maliki Moustapha & Alexander Hollberg & Sébastien Lasvaux & Bruno Sudret & Guillaume Habert, 2024. "Strategies for robust renovation of residential buildings in Switzerland," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. David Frantz & Franz Schug & Dominik Wiedenhofer & André Baumgart & Doris Virág & Sam Cooper & Camila Gómez-Medina & Fabian Lehmann & Thomas Udelhoven & Sebastian Linden & Patrick Hostert & Helmut Hab, 2023. "Unveiling patterns in human dominated landscapes through mapping the mass of US built structures," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Yan, Ran & Ma, Minda & Zhou, Nan & Feng, Wei & Xiang, Xiwang & Mao, Chao, 2023. "Towards COP27: Decarbonization patterns of residential building in China and India," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 352(C).
    4. Mayer, Kevin & Haas, Lukas & Huang, Tianyuan & Bernabé-Moreno, Juan & Rajagopal, Ram & Fischer, Martin, 2023. "Estimating building energy efficiency from street view imagery, aerial imagery, and land surface temperature data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    5. Zhang, Shufan & Zhou, Nan & Feng, Wei & Ma, Minda & Xiang, Xiwang & You, Kairui, 2023. "Pathway for decarbonizing residential building operations in the US and China beyond the mid-century," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 342(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:8:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01429-y. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.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.