Special Issue: Electrification of the Building Heating Sector

Abstract

Human society is at a defining moment to take actions to avoid the most significant health, environmental, and economic impacts resulting from global climate change. To meet the goal set by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to limit global average temperature rise below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels requires very large decreases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, often referred to as deep decarbonization. Approximately 40% of the US population (about 50 million households) lives in the cold-climate regions and intensive space heating and domestic hot water heating dominates total energy consumption. As cities and communities strive for deep decarbonization, meeting heating demand sustainably has become a challenge and an opportunity as most heating infrastructure is based on fossil fuels. For example, in the Northeastern US, over 80% of the heating-related energy consumption come from onsite combustion of fossil fuels dominated by natural gas and fuel oil.