engleski

Role of district heating in energy systems with a high share of renewables – A case study for the country of Macedonia

Macedonia is a country with a two times lower final energy consumption per capita and a four times higher primary energy consumption per GDP compared with OECD Europe countries. The primary energy consumption in 2012 was 2968 ktoe, of which around 50% was lignite. The final energy consumption of the electricity generation sector was around 602 ktoe. Roughly 34% of the electricity needs are satisfied trough import and the rest mainly from lignite thermal power plants (55%) and hydro power plants 11%. Macedonia also has only one district heating system in operation, the one in Skopje. This all results in an energy sector that is responsible for roughly 70% of the CO2 emissions in the country and that is on top of that also highly dependent on imported energy. As our previous work has shown, the utilization of renewables and energy storage can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in Macedonia by up to 9.54% by 2020 and it is possible to achieve a 50% renewable energy system by 2030. With additional measures, even a 100% renewable energy system is feasible by 2050. A prevalent issue with all of these scenarios is the dependence on biomass to ensure such high levels of decarbonisation due to the intermittent nature of wind and photovoltaic sources which prevents their higher penetration. The utilization of flexible demand and higher levels of energy storage can help increase these figures and reduce the need for biomass. The goal of this work is to analyse the influence modern district heating systems can have on the increase of the penetration of intermittent renewables and their role in the development of a 100% renewable energy system that is less dependent on biomass. The EnergyPLAN advanced energy system analyses tool has been used for this purpose.

EnergyPLAN; Macedonia; District heating; Renewable energy sources; Southeast Europe

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