The impact of climate change on future Swedish heating and cooling demand
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Sustainable energy systems (MPSES), MSc
Publicerad
2020
Författare
Abrahamsson, Alice
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The impact of the future climate is highly uncertain and depends on aspects such as future
emission pathways and climate sensitivity. Today the average global temperature has
already increased by 1°C, with the increase being even higher in Sweden [1]. Global
warming influence weather parameters which in turn impacts other parameters such as
biomass growth and power generation from renewable energy sources, but it also impacts
the heating and cooling sector on the demand side.
This thesis investigates how climate change impacts the Swedish heating and cooling
demand by using an energy balance model to calculate how much energy is required to
sustain an allowed indoor air temperature. The input to the model is a constant building
stock and climate data regarding three different kinds of climates, the current climate, the
climate at 1.5°C and 2°C average global temperature increase. The building stock data
comes from the Swedish National Board of Housing’s project, BETSI and the climate
data comes from different climate models from the World Climate Research Programme,
CORDEX. The minimum allowed indoor air temperature is defined by guideline values
from the Swedish National Board of Housing. Since there are no technical standards
regarding maximum indoor air temperature in buildings in Sweden, the incentives for
implementing a cooling system is based on health guidelines for indoor air temperature.
From the output of the energy balance model results that indicates how the heating and
cooling system could be affected by climate change are generated.
The results show that the overall heating demand will be decreased between 5-13 % (-8.5
TWh) compared to the current scenario if the average global warming temperature is
increased by 1.5°C and between 11-16% (-12 TWh) if the temperature is increased 2°C.
The largest seasonal change occurs during winter time, and the smallest during the summer
time. The cooling demand is increased with an increased average global temperature. At
1.5° average global temperature increase the cooling demand is increased 9-34% (+1.75
TWh) and at 2°C 10-40% (+2.25 TWh). The peak demand is slightly less affected by the
changed climate compared to the yearly demand. There is a small change in the length of
the heating period. In climate scenario 1.5°C the heating period is decreased 1.4-1.6% and
in the 2°C climate scenario 2.1-2.2% demand decrease compared to the current climate
scenario.