Current solutions for the energy transition

Abstract

There is a clear mismatch between the national ambition to reach a natural gas-free housing stock and the current ability of owner-occupiers to meet this ambition. This research aims to help resolve this mismatch between the national ambition and the opportunities for households to act in the gas-free transition. To do so, missing information is provided and made understandable to homeowners. By including the servitization model, the effect of this new model is furthermore researched. The objectives are as follows: (1) conceptualize the natural gas-free transition process; (2) develop optimum homeowner focused transition packages showcasing if and how they can enter the transition process; and (3) generate a housing stock feasibility overview and assess the added value of the servitization model. The main method of this research is the development of a transition tool. The tool combines a Building Performance Simulation (BPS) with economic analysis. The main empirical findings indicate that feasible gas-free transition packages can be developed for 33%, or 1.2 million privately owned dwellings with the processes currently available. The remaining 2.4 million dwellings do not showcase feasible business cases to enter the gas-free transition process. The results show that the dwellings that illustrate feasible transition package have the potential to decrease their 49% share of primary energy demand to 8% when gas-free, decreasing the total energy consumption of the Netherlands by 7.7%.