Assessment of the potential of electrical heating to provide decarbonisation

This paper aims to determine how the proposed wide spread uptake of supplementary electric heating on the Irish electrical grid can potentially reduce CO2 emission while improving grid effectiveness and stability. Supplementary electric heating is an electric heater which augments an existing domestic fossil fuel boiler. To improving grid effectiveness and stability to the fullest, the supplemental heating will incorporate demand side management (DSM). Supplementary heating as proposed will allow for better load shifting and levelling of the system power demand curve, while increased system non-synchronous penetration (SNSP) as a percentage of demand, in turn helping to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and the amount of curtailed wind. The focus will be on electric heating methods which can be easily augmented into homes, running in conjunction with existing fossil fuel systems. To show the potential of the supplementary electric heating the characteristics of existing domestic heating systems will be discussed, in terms of their heat output against their exhaust emissions (gCO2e/kWh). This will then be compared to that of the grid CO2 intensity, showing the frequency and duration of the possible emission savings involved when using electricity as a supplementary heating source. Included will be a brief assessment of the potential of this heating method to displace fossil fuel consumption with lower carbon electricity which may otherwise be curtailed due to the constraints of the Irish power system.