Wang, Zhikun;
(2022)
Heat pumps for domestic heating: A techno-economic exploration of comparative advantages of individual scale versus district level.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
Wang_Thesis.pdf - Other Download (5MB) | Preview |
Abstract
A thorough understanding of heat demand is essential for evaluating strategic options to design, plan, and implement future low-carbon heat technologies. Electric heat pumps and decarbonised electricity have been proposed as promising alternatives that could replace gas heating and contribute to the future low-carbon heat mix. District heating has been transformed over several generations to better use renewable sources rather than fossil fuels to meet heat demand. Both technologies are well developed over the past few decades due to a significant amount of scientific research and industrial experience. However, the markets and supply chains for heat pumps and district heating networks are immature in the UK. There are technical, social, and economic factors that present challenges for their deployment. This research offers insights into energy load profiles and peak demand based on data in various types of British dwellings from the largest smart meter field trial. It quantifies energy consumption in dwellings and the aggregated peak demand under cold weather events. This provides an empirical basis for evaluating potential low-carbon heat technologies to replace the existing prevalent gas-fired domestic heating systems. This research investigates the role of heat pumps and district heating by assessing the topological configurations of heat pumps and district heating networks at different scales through techno-economic modelling, in order to explore their comparative advantages from different perspectives, including technical performance, carbon emissions, and cost-competitiveness. This study demonstrates the economies of scales of heat pumps and district heating, and it highlights the advantages of using heat pumps and district heating to reduce carbon emissions via utilising low-carbon electricity and heat sources that would otherwise be wasted.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Heat pumps for domestic heating: A techno-economic exploration of comparative advantages of individual scale versus district level |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10156987 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
