Electricity instead of heat

TL;DR

This paper discusses the transition to electricity-based technologies like heat pumps and electric vehicles, emphasizing their efficiency and potential to reduce primary energy demand through renewable energy expansion.

Contribution

It introduces an entropy-based framework to explain combustion inefficiency and highlights the importance of electricity in achieving a sustainable energy transition.

Findings

Electricity-based technologies are more efficient than combustion.

Entropy analysis explains combustion inefficiency.

Renewable energy expansion can meet future primary energy demand.

Abstract

The energy transition is also about switching to electricity-based technologies such as heat pumps and electric mobility. They avoid heat as an intermediate step and are therefore much more efficient. This can significantly reduce the demand for primary energy in the future, which can then be fully covered by the expansion of renewable energies. Entropy and the maximum possible combustion temperature can be used to understand why combustion is so inefficient.