Fulfill heat demand in houses with district heating and exhaust air heat pump

In Gävle there exists a residential area called Lindbacka where some of the houses are supplied with heat from both district heating and exhaust air heat pump. Gävle Energi owns the district heating system in Gävle and are interested in evaluating the effects from a combined heating system. Based on that, the aim of this study has been to evaluate the impacts a combined system with both district heating and heat pump can have compared to if only one of the two is installed in a house. The thesis has studied these perspectives in an energy, environmental and economic analysis. The results from the energy analysis display that the heat losses in the district heating system relative to the amount of heat sold to customers are relatively large during the year, especially in the summer when the losses are larger than sold amount of energy. The results from the environmental analysis indicates that heat pumps have a larger climate impact during operation measured in tons of carbon dioxide equivalents compared to district heating. On the other hand, the economic analysis present heat pumps to be the cheapest heating option for a customer. The most expensive option for a customer is to install both an exhaust air heat pump and connect to the district heating system since this leads to double fixed and variable costs during the year. For Gävle Energi the economic analysis indicates that the investment cost of building the district heating system to Lindbacka was not profitable since the investment cost does not pay back in 30 years. Some of the houses in Lindbacka has been excluded in the thesis due to insufficient data. This will have an impact on the results in the thesis