Innovation and policy measures to solve the heat challenge – report from an inspiring side event
In September a side event for inspiration and learning from each other was organized at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum, a joint convening of the 13th Clean Energy Ministerial and 7th Mission Innovation ministerial meeting, (CEM13MI7) in Pittsburgh.
Please find the all presentation here >
This session presented innovative technology and policy solutions that aim to reduce emissions from the heating sector worldwide. The audience could learn how technologies like the breakthrough Comfort and Climate Box (CCB) can meet heating and cooling needs and be deployed at scale, and how national and subnational governments are developing technology, financial, and energy policies supporting the rapid deployment of clean heating. The IEA’s Technology Collaboration Programme on Heat Pumping Technologies (HPT TCP) Global Alliance for Building and Construction’s (ABC’s) Clean Heat Forum, and Mission Innovation’s Innovation Community on Affordable Heating and Cooling of Buildings (MI#IC7) hosted the session.
The side event was opened by a short introduction by representatives from the hosting organizations, Monica Axell (IEA HPT TCP), Piero de Bonis (MI#IC7) and David Smedick (The Global ABC’s Clean Heat Forum). Thereafter a number of presentations and a panel discussion followed.
Transformation in the heating sector needed to reach the climate ambitions
Thereafter, Araceli Fernandez, Head of Technology and Innovation, Energy Technology Policy Division within the International Energy Agency (IEA) gave a presentation about the Transformation in the heating sector needed to reach the climate ambitions. To align with the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario substantial energy efficiency renovations need to be done within the building sector, and a drastic shift away from fossil fuels-based heating towards electricity and renewables. See presentation here >
Heat pumps are increasingly recognized as a critical technology for heat decarbonization, receiving increasing policy support in several countries over the last years. About 190 million heat pump units were in operation in buildings worldwide in 2021. The global stock of heat pumps has increased quite steadily over the past few years, particularly in primary heating markets – North America, Europe and northern and eastern Asia. In 2021, record high growth in heat pumps sales was registered in particular in Europe, China and the United States; 2022 is also showing early signs of positive growth despite challenges in supply chains. Other than climate objectives, energy security is an important driver for heat pumps in the European Union in particular, with increasing policy attention in 2022. Part of the deployment is also driven by a growing space cooling demand met with reversible heat pumps. Heat pumps still meet only around 10% of the global heating need in buildings though, below the deployment level required to get on track with the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario. In this scenario, the global heat pump stock reaches about 600 million by 2030, covering at least 20% of global heating needs. Further policy support and technical innovation are needed, in particular to reduce upfront purchase and installation costs, remove market barriers to complex renovations, improve energy performance and durability, and exploit the potential of heat pumps as an enabler of power system integration and flexibility.
The IEA is tracking heat pump technology developments as part of its ETP Clean Technology Guide that includes over 500 technologies and for which the latest edition was released on 22 September. Heat pumps were also a strategic area discussed in the recent report on Technology and innovation pathways for zero-carbon-ready buildings by 2030, which provides the strategic vision of experts from the IEA Technology Collaboration Programmes on how to help achieve some of the most impactful short-term milestones for the buildings sector outlined in the IEA’s Net Zero by 2050 Roadmap.
Role out of heat pumps in Europe – policy enablers and barriers
Martin Forsén, President of European Heat Pump Association (EHPA) talked about the Role out of heat pumps in Europe – policy enablers and barriers. He talked about how the overarching policy framework in Europe, aiming for increased renewable energy, increased energy efficiency and reduced emission of greenhouse gases has evolved during the last decade with more and more ambitious targets, especially for the share of renewable energy. This has resulted in policies supporting increased deployment of heat pumps and the market has responded with a substantial growth. Last year the European market increased by 35%. However, to be able to reach the targets in the Fit-for-55 and the REPowerEU package, the yearly sales rate needs to double. For this to happen a comprehensive policy support is needed. Key barriers to further scaling up production and deployment of heat pumps continue to exist such as high upfront purchase prices and operational costs, the legacy of the existing building stock, limited manufacturing capacity and a shortage of workers trained to install heat pumps. It is of uttermost importance to adjust taxes, fees and subsidies to make clean heating the most affordable solution for end users. Moreover, support is needed to take new innovations to the market, especially when it comes to solutions that could interact with and support the electric grid. See presentation here >
Role out of heat pumps in the US – policy enablers and barriers
Thereafter, Ramachandran Narayanamurthy, Manager of the Emerging Technologies Progaramme, US Department of Energy (DOE), gave a presentation about Role out of heat pumps in the US – policy enablers and barriers, where he talked about the present actions taken in US to decarbonize heating. To achieve the clean energy generation targets and the economy wide emission reduction goals equitably and affordably several measures are taken. He told the audience about the recently adopted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Defence Production Act (DPA) which will strongly support clean energy technologies for heating, amongst them heat pumps. Energy Efficiency renovations reduces customer and grid cost. Elimination of onsite emissions is necessary for decarbonizing the building stock. Moreover, demand side flexibility is critical to achieving a carbon free electric grid which operates 24 hours per day, seven days a week. He informed about the “Energy, Emissions and Equity (E3) initiative”, which is focused on developing, demonstrating and deploying heat pumps at scale. This includes measures to support the development, improvement and roll-out of cold climate heat pumps, low GWP refrigerants, heat pump water heaters and heat pump diagnostic tools. In addition, it includes better climate pilots and workforce training. He also talked about some products which could potentially reduce the cost of electrification of heating, since they will help in reducing the demand for electric infrastructure upgrades. Example technologies within this portfolio is high efficiency (120 V) heat pumps, low power (120 V) heat pump water heaters with storage and smart panels for demand control. See presentation here >
Clean Heat Forum
The next speaker was David Smedick, from RMI representing The Global Alliance for Building and Construction’s Clean Heat Forum, which was launched at the COP26 meeting last year. The objectives of the Clean Heat Forum are to shape and exchange best practices, co-creation of standards and regulations and by making the case of action by other parties to accelerate heat decarbonization. He talked about the aim of the initiative which is to connect governments, civil society, industry, and other partners, engaged in the field of clean heating, for them to learn from each other’s best practice and ambitions. See presentation here >
Comfort and Climate Box – Roadmap for Scaling and Replication
In the final presentation of the event Caroline Haglund Stignor from RISE, representing the Technology Collaboration Programme on Heat Pumping Technologies by IEA (HPT TCP by IEA) presented the “Comfort and Climate Box” project, with focus on a roadmap for scaling and replication och this type of products. She started her intervention by talking about the different needs to be fulfilled to solve the heat challenge. The end user wants to have a comfortable home, to get access to hot water, reasonable energy bills and a compact plug-and-play solution. Some end users have high environmental awareness. For them, it is of importance with a clean heating solution. Policymakers want to reach their climatic targets and to ensure security of supply. It is also of high importance with reasonable energy bills for the population. When it comes to utilities and grid owners, it is important to get an acceptable return on investments. Many of them have emission targets that shall be reached, they need flexibility providers to ensure the security of supply for their clients and to optimize investments. However, which of the needs that is of most importance differ from market to market. In some countries needs related to affordability is of most importance, on others flexibility, compactness or efficiency has a higher relevance.
One solution to fulfil all these needs is the so called Comfort and Climate Box, which in this context means an integrated combination of heat pump, energy storage and control – in a box. It could be a real one or a virtual one. In a joint international collaboration project performed within the heat pumping technologies and energy storage TCP together with Mission innovation, the possibilities to develop and accelerate the deployment of this type of solutions have been explored. In one of the prototype developed within this project, different control algorithms were developed and evaluated, whicj optimized the cost and/or the self-consumption of on-site produced electricity. During the presentation she showed a graph illustrating that the control function prioritized to operate the heat pump, when the electricity price is low and when the sun is shining on the PV panels. See presentation here >. The demand for this type of product is growing on markets where the electricity price has a high volatility and many manufacturers are working on their development. Sometimes together with academia.
During this collaboration project recommendations for different stakeholders such as policy makers, utilities and manufacturers where developed, since measures from all these are needed to stimulate the deployment of Comfort and Climate Boxes. First of all, policy makers need to promote and prioritize heat pumps and energy storage in policies – a comprehensive approach is needed. They should also promote clean heating solutions that can interact with and stabilize the grid. Utilities and grid operators need to inform the end users how they can influence their energy bill by investing in a solution that can interact with the grid, solar panels or their electric car. What manufacturers need to focus on, depends on what is of most importance on the specific market in mind – if it is affordability, flexibility, compactness or efficiency. A summary of all the recommendations can be found in the presentation here >. For all these measures to be implemented continued research and innovation activities are needed.
The final reports from this project can be found here >.
Panel discussion
During the panel discussion, moderated by Jon Saltmarsh from Mission Innovation IC7, both Araceli P Fernandez from IEA and Caroline Haglund Stignor from HPT TCP by IEA talked about the research and innovations needs for accelerated deployment of heat pumping technologies. They both mentioned system integration to connect heat pumps to other clean energy solutions, flexibility and demand side management to interact with and stabilize the electric grid, improved efficiency of heat pumps in an extended operating range, from cold climate heat pumps to heat pumps that operate in high temperature heating systems in buildings, thermal grids and industries, and to explore alternative business models to improve the affordability of clean heating solutions. Caroline Haglund Stignor informed that the HPT TCP has recently revised their strategic work plan, which in addition to the R&I areas mentioned above, includes activities to ensure a sustainable and affordable value chain, improving affordability, and to develop solutions for a circular economy. Within the HPT TCP, research will also continue to be done to develop efficient and safe systems for refrigerants with low global warming potential and to explore on non-vapour compression technologies, even though they are still on a low TRL level.
Martin Forsén, from EHPA, got the question which is the most important policy measure to accelerate the deployment of clean heating that he was aware of, which would be recommended to policy makers in different countries around the world. He answered without doubt: “policies that make the polluter pay, that make clean heating the most affordable solution for end consumer”.
During the end of the panel discussion David Smedick from Clean Heat Forum emphasised the urgency of actions to be taken. In only a couple of years we need to halve our emissions and them continue to reduce them to net zero in the next two forthcoming decades. We need to act now!
Summarizing remarks
Monica Axell from RISE, representing HPT TCP by IEA summarized the session. We can conclude from this session that we need a package of long-term commitment from policy, supporting the transition in the heating sector. We also need larger investment in research to bring new innovations to the market, to support scaling and capacity building. The future is collaboration, cross disciplinary approach, and smart system integration of affordable solutions. She also concluded that the future for heat pumps have never been brighter than now. We need to go together and collaborate to inspire to innovations and solutions to accelerate transition in the heating sector.
Piero de Bonis from EC, representing the Mission Innovation #IC7, highlighted the importance to raise the awareness of the urgent need of transition in the heating sector to clean solutions.
About the Global Clean Energy Action Forum
The United States Department of Energy has named 2022 the Year of Implementation because it is a pivotal year for the fast action required to deliver on global climate and clean energy ambition. The first ever Global Clean Energy Action Forum, is a joint convening of the 13th Clean Energy Ministerial and 7th Mission Innovation ministerial took place on September 21-22 in Pittsburgh, US, and seeked to deliver on that mission through high-level plenaries, topical roundtables, side events, technology demonstrations, and other activities. The discussions included partners in the private sector, academia, innovators, civil society, youth and communities everywhere.
