Individual decisions and system development – Integrating modelling approaches for the heating market

Improvements in the building stock insulation and the replacement of heating systems will have to take place within the next decades in order to lower heat demand and the associated carbon emissions of the building sector. The current study presents an integrated, iterative modelling approach to determine the development of the heating market. A system model captures the fundamental influencing factors on the investment decision while a logistic decision model describes in detail the building owners’ behaviour, taking into account the heterogeneous building stock and possible non-economic factors influencing heating system choice. In the application case, the potentials for different heating technologies are investigated under three different economic scenarios for the German heating market until 2050. The heating market with house owners as the main actors is relatively sluggish, thus political targets are likely to fail. The impact of the heat pump induced electricity demand on the power market remains low. In order to achieve the ambitious heating market targets in Germany further efforts are necessary. In particular the potentials of the existing building stock need to be taped more efficiently.