Cost-effective Planning of Decarbonized Power-Gas Infrastructure to Meet the Challenges of Heating Electrification

TL;DR

This paper presents a modeling framework to evaluate decarbonized power-gas infrastructure planning under building heat electrification, highlighting the importance of demand-side measures and demand flexibility for cost-effective decarbonization.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive framework to quantify demand and optimize infrastructure investments considering electrification pathways and methane emissions impacts.

Findings

High electrification increases peak electricity demand by up to 158%.

Demand-side measures can reduce overall energy demand by 28-30%.

Demand flexibility programs can cut total system costs by up to 6.3%.

Abstract

Building heat electrification is central to economy-wide decarbonization efforts and directly affects energy infrastructure planning through increasing electricity demand and reducing the building sector's use of gas infrastructure that also serves the power sector. Here, we develop a modeling framework to quantify end-use demand for electricity and gas in the buildings sector under various electrification pathways and evaluate their impact on co-optimized bulk power-gas infrastructure investments and operations under deep decarbonization scenarios. Applying the framework to study the U.S. New England region in 2050 across 20 weather scenarios, we find high electrification of the residential sector can increase sectoral peak and total electricity demands by up to 56-158% and 41-59% respectively relative to business-as-usual projections. Employing demand-side measures like building envelope improvements under high electrification, however, can reduce the magnitude and weather sensitivity of peak load as well as induce overall efficiency gains, reducing the combined residential sector energy demand for power and gas by 28-30% relative to the present day. Notably, a combination of high electrification and envelope improvements yields the lowest bulk power-gas system cost outcomes. Accounting for \bt{midstream} methane emissions from gas supply chain increase the reliance on low-carbon fuels, which indirectly improves the cost-effectiveness of end-use electrification. Similarly, we find that demand flexibility programs can reduce the total system cost by up to 6.3%.