EU-28 Residential Heat Supply and Consumption: Historical Development and Status

Nis Bertelsen and Brian Vad Mathiesen
Additional contact information
Nis Bertelsen: Department of Planning, Aalborg University, 2450 Copenhagen, Denmark
Brian Vad Mathiesen: Department of Planning, Aalborg University, 2450 Copenhagen, Denmark

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-21

Abstract: EU is moving towards a climate neutrality goal in 2050 with heating of buildings posing a major challenge. This paper provides a deep understanding of the historical development, path dependency and current status of the EU-28 residential heat sectors to inform strategy and policy makers and to open up this black box. Data is combined for buildings, installed technologies, fuel consumption and energy supply for Member States from 1990 to 2015, to analyse the importance of large-scale infrastructures and supply chains. Primary energy supply for residential heating is mainly based on fossil fuels; 70% in 2015 with 69% imported. The building level technologies are dominated by non-condensing boilers and stoves. Primary and final energy consumption decreased in spite of an increase in the total occupied living area in most countries. Path-dependency effects are found in the residential heat supply in EU. The analysis show path-dependent trajectories are present in most Member States, especially regarding natural gas infrastructure. The period shows many options for decarbonisation are not used to the full potential, e.g., energy efficiency in buildings, district heating, heat pumps. Past experiences should be considered when developing new decarbonisation strategies in Member States and on the EU level.

Keywords: residential heat supply; heat; decarbonisation; EU-28; supply chain; energy efficiency; data quality; path dependency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/8/1894/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/8/1894/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:8:p:1894-:d:344946

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().