The Impact on Wind Power Integration from Geothermal Absorption:Heat Pumps and Compression Heat Pumps

Aalborg Municipality, Denmark is investigating ways of switching to 100 % renewable energy supply over the next 40 years. Analyses so far have demonstrated a potential for such a transition through energy savings, district heating (DH) and the use of locally available biomass, wind power and lowtemperature geothermal resources. The analyses have also demonstrated that the municipality will still rely heavily on surrounding areas for electric load balancing assistance. With a departure in a previously elaborated 100% renewable energy scenario, this paper investigates how absorption heat pumps (AHP) and compression heat pumps (HP) for the supply of DH impact the integration of wind power. Hourly scenarioanalyses made using the EnergyPLAN model reveal a boiler production and electricity excess which is higher with AHPs than with HPs whereas condensing mode power generation is increased by the application of HPs rather than AHP