M. Chen
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Modeling Equitable Heating Transition Pathways for Dutch Urban Neighborhoods
Incorporating energy poverty aspects in the design of integrated energy systems
The Dutch heating transition aims to accelerate the shift away from heating with natural gas toward low-carbon alternatives. Although national climate policy provides longterm emission reduction targets, heating transition pathways are often assessed using
aggregated data, which do not show distributional impacts across households. This thesis addresses this gap by examining how neighborhood-scale heating systems can be designed to achieve decarbonization goals while incorporating dimensions of energy poverty. A community-level energy system optimization model was developed using Calliope, allowing for detailed representation of household heterogeneity, technology choices, cost-sharing structures, and equity-based objective functions.
The model incorporates three aspects of energy poverty: affordability, insulation quality, and the ability to participate. Seven scenarios are evaluated, combining individual or shared investment structures, cost or equity objective functions, and the presence or absence of a CO2 constraint. Household-level heat demand, income, and housing characteristics were used as inputs, alongside technology parameters and constraints. Outputs include total household costs, installed technology capacities, emissions and energy burden.
The scenario comparison shows several findings. First, shared heating systems consistently reduce total system costs relative to individual systems while achieving identical emission levels under a CO2 constraint. These benefits are strongest for apartment households, whose smaller demands enable more efficient use of shared technologies. Second, only the lowest-cost scenario without emission constraints meets the affordability criteria of the Dutch Wgiw. While electrified heating reduces annual energy bills due to higher efficiency, the associated investments are too high to be recovered over thirty years when strict emission limits are imposed. Third, stringent emission constraints increase total system costs, up to 2.5 times higher than the gas baseline. This shows that there is a strong trade-off between large emission reduction and costs. Moderate emission reductions can achieved at lower or moderately higher costs than the baseline. Sensitivity analyses highlight that energy price variations affect costs and emissions less than proportionally, indicating that the system configurations are relatively robust. The equity-based objective functions, designed to minimize income-weighted costs, have only marginal influence on outcomes. This is because optimal configurations under cost minimization already lie close to the equity-weighted optimum, and in shared systems a significant share of the costs are allocated using fixed fractions based on demand, leaving limited flexibility for redistribution. These findings explain why no single scenario fully satisfies affordability, equity, and emission reduction goals simultaneously.
Overall, the results show that achieving both low-carbon and socially equitable heatiing outcomes requires more than optimal system design. In particular, insulation upgrades, collective investment structures, targeted subsidies for low-income households, and careful alignmentwith local grid constraints are essential for reducing energy poverty while meeting emission targets. ...
aggregated data, which do not show distributional impacts across households. This thesis addresses this gap by examining how neighborhood-scale heating systems can be designed to achieve decarbonization goals while incorporating dimensions of energy poverty. A community-level energy system optimization model was developed using Calliope, allowing for detailed representation of household heterogeneity, technology choices, cost-sharing structures, and equity-based objective functions.
The model incorporates three aspects of energy poverty: affordability, insulation quality, and the ability to participate. Seven scenarios are evaluated, combining individual or shared investment structures, cost or equity objective functions, and the presence or absence of a CO2 constraint. Household-level heat demand, income, and housing characteristics were used as inputs, alongside technology parameters and constraints. Outputs include total household costs, installed technology capacities, emissions and energy burden.
The scenario comparison shows several findings. First, shared heating systems consistently reduce total system costs relative to individual systems while achieving identical emission levels under a CO2 constraint. These benefits are strongest for apartment households, whose smaller demands enable more efficient use of shared technologies. Second, only the lowest-cost scenario without emission constraints meets the affordability criteria of the Dutch Wgiw. While electrified heating reduces annual energy bills due to higher efficiency, the associated investments are too high to be recovered over thirty years when strict emission limits are imposed. Third, stringent emission constraints increase total system costs, up to 2.5 times higher than the gas baseline. This shows that there is a strong trade-off between large emission reduction and costs. Moderate emission reductions can achieved at lower or moderately higher costs than the baseline. Sensitivity analyses highlight that energy price variations affect costs and emissions less than proportionally, indicating that the system configurations are relatively robust. The equity-based objective functions, designed to minimize income-weighted costs, have only marginal influence on outcomes. This is because optimal configurations under cost minimization already lie close to the equity-weighted optimum, and in shared systems a significant share of the costs are allocated using fixed fractions based on demand, leaving limited flexibility for redistribution. These findings explain why no single scenario fully satisfies affordability, equity, and emission reduction goals simultaneously.
Overall, the results show that achieving both low-carbon and socially equitable heatiing outcomes requires more than optimal system design. In particular, insulation upgrades, collective investment structures, targeted subsidies for low-income households, and careful alignmentwith local grid constraints are essential for reducing energy poverty while meeting emission targets. ...
The Dutch heating transition aims to accelerate the shift away from heating with natural gas toward low-carbon alternatives. Although national climate policy provides longterm emission reduction targets, heating transition pathways are often assessed using
aggregated data, which do not show distributional impacts across households. This thesis addresses this gap by examining how neighborhood-scale heating systems can be designed to achieve decarbonization goals while incorporating dimensions of energy poverty. A community-level energy system optimization model was developed using Calliope, allowing for detailed representation of household heterogeneity, technology choices, cost-sharing structures, and equity-based objective functions.
The model incorporates three aspects of energy poverty: affordability, insulation quality, and the ability to participate. Seven scenarios are evaluated, combining individual or shared investment structures, cost or equity objective functions, and the presence or absence of a CO2 constraint. Household-level heat demand, income, and housing characteristics were used as inputs, alongside technology parameters and constraints. Outputs include total household costs, installed technology capacities, emissions and energy burden.
The scenario comparison shows several findings. First, shared heating systems consistently reduce total system costs relative to individual systems while achieving identical emission levels under a CO2 constraint. These benefits are strongest for apartment households, whose smaller demands enable more efficient use of shared technologies. Second, only the lowest-cost scenario without emission constraints meets the affordability criteria of the Dutch Wgiw. While electrified heating reduces annual energy bills due to higher efficiency, the associated investments are too high to be recovered over thirty years when strict emission limits are imposed. Third, stringent emission constraints increase total system costs, up to 2.5 times higher than the gas baseline. This shows that there is a strong trade-off between large emission reduction and costs. Moderate emission reductions can achieved at lower or moderately higher costs than the baseline. Sensitivity analyses highlight that energy price variations affect costs and emissions less than proportionally, indicating that the system configurations are relatively robust. The equity-based objective functions, designed to minimize income-weighted costs, have only marginal influence on outcomes. This is because optimal configurations under cost minimization already lie close to the equity-weighted optimum, and in shared systems a significant share of the costs are allocated using fixed fractions based on demand, leaving limited flexibility for redistribution. These findings explain why no single scenario fully satisfies affordability, equity, and emission reduction goals simultaneously.
Overall, the results show that achieving both low-carbon and socially equitable heatiing outcomes requires more than optimal system design. In particular, insulation upgrades, collective investment structures, targeted subsidies for low-income households, and careful alignmentwith local grid constraints are essential for reducing energy poverty while meeting emission targets.
aggregated data, which do not show distributional impacts across households. This thesis addresses this gap by examining how neighborhood-scale heating systems can be designed to achieve decarbonization goals while incorporating dimensions of energy poverty. A community-level energy system optimization model was developed using Calliope, allowing for detailed representation of household heterogeneity, technology choices, cost-sharing structures, and equity-based objective functions.
The model incorporates three aspects of energy poverty: affordability, insulation quality, and the ability to participate. Seven scenarios are evaluated, combining individual or shared investment structures, cost or equity objective functions, and the presence or absence of a CO2 constraint. Household-level heat demand, income, and housing characteristics were used as inputs, alongside technology parameters and constraints. Outputs include total household costs, installed technology capacities, emissions and energy burden.
The scenario comparison shows several findings. First, shared heating systems consistently reduce total system costs relative to individual systems while achieving identical emission levels under a CO2 constraint. These benefits are strongest for apartment households, whose smaller demands enable more efficient use of shared technologies. Second, only the lowest-cost scenario without emission constraints meets the affordability criteria of the Dutch Wgiw. While electrified heating reduces annual energy bills due to higher efficiency, the associated investments are too high to be recovered over thirty years when strict emission limits are imposed. Third, stringent emission constraints increase total system costs, up to 2.5 times higher than the gas baseline. This shows that there is a strong trade-off between large emission reduction and costs. Moderate emission reductions can achieved at lower or moderately higher costs than the baseline. Sensitivity analyses highlight that energy price variations affect costs and emissions less than proportionally, indicating that the system configurations are relatively robust. The equity-based objective functions, designed to minimize income-weighted costs, have only marginal influence on outcomes. This is because optimal configurations under cost minimization already lie close to the equity-weighted optimum, and in shared systems a significant share of the costs are allocated using fixed fractions based on demand, leaving limited flexibility for redistribution. These findings explain why no single scenario fully satisfies affordability, equity, and emission reduction goals simultaneously.
Overall, the results show that achieving both low-carbon and socially equitable heatiing outcomes requires more than optimal system design. In particular, insulation upgrades, collective investment structures, targeted subsidies for low-income households, and careful alignmentwith local grid constraints are essential for reducing energy poverty while meeting emission targets.