How do changes to future technology and fuel developments affect the optimal residential heating decarbonisation pathway? Mr. Jason Mc Guire, MaREI, UCC

1. How do changes to future energy system decarbonisation targets
affect the optimal residential heating pathway?
Jason Mc Guire
Energy Policy & Modelling Group at MaREI, UCC
Semi-annual ETSAP Meeting, 29th November 2021

2. Introduction - New Model
A newly developed “TIMES Ireland Model” (TIM) has been developed to provide robust and
transparent insights into Ireland’s national decarbonisation pathways.
Figure 2. Web-based results (https://tim-carbon-
budgets-2021.netlify.app/results )
Figure 1. TIM Files (https://github.com/MaREI-
EPMG/TIM-archived)
Figure 4. Mc Guire, Jason. (2021). TIMES-
Ireland model: Residential data (1.0) [Data
set]. Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5541355
Figure 3. TIM Results (Hannah Daly, Andrew
Smith, Vahid Aryanpur, Ankita Gaur, Jason
McGuire, Xufeng Yue, James Glynn, &
Olexandr Balyk. (2021). Carbon Budget
Scenarios for Ireland's Energy System, 2021-
50 (v1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5517363)

3. Introduction – Why?
Figure 5. Climate Action and Low Carbon
Development (Amendment) Act 2021
Figure 7. Climate Action Plan 2021
23rd July 2021 4th November 2021
Figure 6. Climate Change Advisory Council –
Carbon Budget Technical Report
25th October 2021
51% GHG reduction in
2030, compared to 2018,
introduction of legally
binding carbon budgets
TIM was the one of 3
models used for the
analysis and the only
energy system model
TIM can contribute to
some action points

4. -
20
40
60
80
1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
Mt
CO
2
e
COVID19 Pandemic
3.6% fall in GHGs
Carbon Budget 1
4.8% annual fall
Carbon Budget 2
8.3% annual fall
CB1:
295 Mt
CB2:
200 Mt
Ireland GHG Emissions
Figure 8. Ireland GHG emissions, 1990-2050 {source: Dr. Hannah E. Daly, 3/11/2021}

5. TIM: Residential
Figure 9. Residential reference energy system in TIM
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
A B1 B2 B3 C D E F G
Number
of
dwellings
Building Energy Rating
Apartment Attached Detached
Figure 10. Residential dwelling stock 2018
CSO = Central Statistics Office; BER = Building Energy Rating
database ( or EPC); r = rating, a = archetype, y = year of
construction, nsa = non-stated archetype

6. TIM: Residential Heating
BER Rating Living Area (°C)
Non-living Area
(°C)
A 23 20
B 21 18
C,D,E,F 18 15
G 18 13
Table 1. Internal temperature assumption applied.
The BER assumes all living areas are heated to
21°C, and all non-living areas are heated to 18°C,
this overestimate residential space heating by 26%
in Ireland, so new assumption were applied to
better reflect actual residential heating.
Space
Heating
62%
Water
Heating
18%
Pumps &
Fans
1%
Lighting
4% Cooking
2%
Appliances
13%
Figure 13. Residential primary energy by energy service

7. TIM: Residential Scenarios
The four scenarios examined here are:
• E65: Core Scenario
• E61:
• E57:
• E51:

8. TIM: Residential Fuel
Figure 11. Residential primary/secondary fuel by scenario in 2030
-
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Base E51 E57 E61 E65
2018 2030
Primary/Secondary
Energy
(PJ)
Coal & peat Oil Natural gas Electricity Bioenergy Other renewables
• Reduce total energy by 8 - 13%
• Phase-out of Coal & Peat
• Reduce Oil by 90 – 93%
• Natural Gas varies - 3 scenarios reduce by 7 - 8%
& E51 increases by 25%
• Electricity 83 – 94% increase (E65 lowest growth)
• Renewables 8 to12-fold increase

9. Figure 12. Optimal number of residential retrofits by type per scenario from 2018-2030
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
-
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
E51 E57 E61 E65
2018-2030
Cumulative
Energy
Savings
(PJ)
Number
of
Retrofits
('000s)
Attached Deep Attached Shallow
Detached Deep Detached Shallow
Cumulative energy savings
TIM: Building Fabric Retrofit
• Total number of retrofits range from
393,000 – 607,000
• Detached first & No Apartments!
• Retrofits are required prior to installing heat
pumps in 85% of existing Irish dwellings

10. Figure 13. Optimal number of retrofits by type per scenario from 2018-2030
TIM: Electrical Space Heating
• Total number of electrical heat pumps
492,000 – 870,000
• Total non-heat pump electrical space
heating 86,000 – 285,000
-
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
E51 E57 E61 E65
2018-2030
New
Electrical
Space
Heaters
('000s)
Apartment Attached
Detached Attached Electrical Resistance
Detached Electrical Resistance
• Apartments prefer gas

11. Figure 14. Optimal number of retrofits by type per scenario from 2018-2030
TIM: Residential Cost
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
18,000
Up to 2030
Residential
Total
Cost
(€m)
E51 E57 E61 E65
• Total Cost difference up to 2030 is 23.7%

12. TIM: Residential CO2 Emissions
• Residential direct CO2 emissions to reduce by
63 – 71% depending on scenario
-
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
7,000
8,000
Base E51 E57 E61 E65
2018 2030
Emissions
(tCO2)
Figure 15. Optimal residential emissions in 2030 by scenario

13. TIM: Future Work
• Climate Action Plan 2021
• Further Heat pump and building
fabric retrofit analysis
• Biogas Analysis
• Disaggregate Building Energy Rating
• Measure the impact of a scenario
on a household bill
• Other Future Work Ideas:

14. E-mail: jason.mcguire@ucc.ie
Twitter: @jayomacg
Thank you for listening. Any questions?