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ESCOs for residential buildings : market situation in the European Union and policy recommendations
(2013)
Although a substantial economic energy saving potential exists in the residential sector of the European Union, the energy efficiency service (EES) market is much less developed in this market segment than in other demand sectors (e.g. the industry or the public/service sector).
This paper presents an analysis of the current situation and existing potentials for future expansion. A specific analysis methodology has been developed and applied by a research consortium in 18 EU countries. This methodology has mostly built upon an extensive review of the existing literature and on interviews of a large number of acknowledged experts. Its application has allowed identifying encouraging development trends in specific market segments where the possibility of aggregating the EES demand or of exploiting good relationships with customers have created interesting investment opportunities. These trends have been observed in particular in Germany, Denmark, France, Flanders (BE), Hungary, Romania and UK. The assessment performed has also allowed discussing a series of strategies and policy measures that can be adopted to overcome existing barriers to market development. The general conclusion drawn in the paper is that energy efficiency policies supporting EES markets in the residential sector are highly needed. Although EU policies have typically a limited direct impact, they can increase trust into EESs and EES providers. At the national level, a stronger collaboration of governments or local administrations with banks to finance EESs is still very necessary in many EU countries.
Contemporary combined heat and power (CHP) systems are often based on fossil fuels, such as natural gas or heating oil. Thereby, small-scale cogeneration systems are intended to replace or complement traditional heating equipment in residential buildings. In addition to space heating or domestic hot water supply, electricity is generated for the own consumption of the building or to be sold to the electric power grid.
The adaptation of CHP-systems to renewable energy sources, such as solid biomass applications is challenging, because of feedstock composition and heat integration. Nevertheless, in particular smallscale CHP technologies based on biomass gasification and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offer significant potentials, also regarding important co-benefits, such as security of energy supply as well as emission reductions in terms of greenhouse gases or air pollutants. Besides emission or air quality regulations, the development of CHP technologies for clean on-site small-scale power generation is also strongly incentivised by energy efficiency policies for residential appliances, such as e.g. Ecodesign and Energy Labelling in the European Union (EU). Furthermore, solid residual biomass as renewable local energy source is best suited for decentralised operations such as micro-grids, also to reduce long-haul fuel transports. By this means such distributed energy resource technology can become an essential part of a forward-looking strategy for net zero energy or even smart plus energy buildings.
In this context, this paper presents preliminary impact assessment results and most recent environmental considerations from the EU Horizon 2020 project "FlexiFuel-SOFC" (Grant Agreement no. 641229), which aims at the development of a novel CHP system, consisting of a fuel flexible smallscale fixed-bed updraft gasifier technology, a compact gas cleaning concept and an SOFC for electricity generation. Besides sole system efficiencies, in particular resource and emission aspects of solid fuel combustion and net electricity effects need to be considered. The latter means that vastly less emission intensive gasifier-fuel cell CHP technologies cause significant less fuel related emissions than traditional heating systems, an effect which is further strengthened by avoided emissions from more emission intensive traditional grid electricity generation. As promising result, operation "net" emissions of such on-site generation installations may be virtually zero or even negative. Additionally, this paper scopes central regulatory instruments for small-scale CHP systems in the EU to discuss ways to improve the framework for system deployment.