heat and cooling supply

Today, renewables provide 11% of North America’s primary energy demand for heat supply, the main contribution coming from the use of biomass. The lack of district heating networks is a severe structural barrier to the large scale utilisation of geothermal and solar thermal energy. Dedicated support instruments are required to ensure a dynamic development.

In the Energy [R]evolution Scenario, renewables provide 69% of North America’s total heating demand in 2050.

Energy efficiency measures help to reduce the currently growing demand for heating and cooling, in spite of improving living standards.
For direct heating, solar collectors, biomass/biogas as well as geothermal energy are increasingly substituting for fossil fuelfired systems.
A shift from coal and oil to natural gas in the remaining conventional applications will lead to a further reduction of CO2 emissions.

Institute DLR, Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, Department of Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment, Stuttgart, Germany
Ecofys BV, P.O. Box 8408, NL-3503 RK Utrecht, Kanaalweg 16-G

Regional Partners: OECD North America WorldWatch Institute; Greenpeace USA Latin America University of Sao Paulo; Greenpeace Brazil; OECD Europe European Renewable Energy Council; Transition Economies Vladimir Tchouprov Africa & Middle East Reference Project: “Trans-Mediterranean Interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power” 2006; Greenpeace Mediterranean; South Asia Rangan Banerjee, Bangalore, India; Greenpeace India; East Asia ISEP-Institute Tokyo; Greenpeace South East Asia; China Prof. Zhang Xilian, Tsinghua University, Beijing; Greenpeace China; OECD Pacific ISEP-Institute Tokyo, Japan; Dialog Institute,Wellington, New Zealand; Greenpeace Australia Pacific; Greenpeace New Zealand