Publication Date
2022
Abstract
Since heating buildings using natural gas, propane and oil makes up a significant proportion of the aggregate carbon emissions every year, there is a strong interest in decarbonizing residential heating systems using new technologies such as electric heat pumps. In this poster, we conduct a data-driven optimization study to analyze the potential of replacing gas heating with electric heat pumps to reduce carbon emissions in a city-wide distribution grid. We seek to not only reduce the carbon footprint of residential heating, but also show how to do so equitably. Our results show that lower income homes have an energy usage intensity 24% higher than that of high income ones. We propose equity-aware transition strategies that enforce equity and show that such strategies achieve significant levels of CO2 reduction while reducing the disparity in value of selected homes by 5× compared to a carbon-first approach.
Journal or Book Title
e-Energy '22: Proceedings of the Thirteenth ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems
Pages
438–439
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3538637.3538801
Included in
Oil, Gas, and Energy Commons, Power and Energy Commons, Public Economics Commons, Regional Economics Commons, Social Justice Commons, Software Engineering Commons, Sustainability Commons, Systems Architecture Commons