Energy, economic and environmental assessment of the utilization of heat pumps for buildings heating in the Italian residential sector

Buildings heating is one of the main source of primary energy consumption, therefore there is a high pressure for finding solution able to reduce the consumption with consequent positive impacts on the environment. In the last years, it has been detected all around Europe an aggressive development of renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. Thus, an increasing share of electricity is now generated from renewables, which can be seen as a clean and sustainable source of energy. On the contrary, most of the heating systems available in buildings are based on fossil fuels boilers, usually fueled with fuel oil or natural gas. These fuel sources are characterized by pollutant emissions, namely CO2, NOx, SOx, soot, especially in the case of fuel oil. By developing an energy system model, the present paper shows that the switching from fossil fuel to electricity of buildings heating systems can support the reduction of primary energy consumption thus guaranteeing better economic and environmental performances. If an increasing amount of electricity is generated by using renewables energies, therefore the carbon intensity of electricity generation substantially decreases. The paper demonstrates that if the 20% of heating demand is covered by heat pumps a saving of 4% (27 TWht) in primary energy and 4% (% Mt) of carbon emissions can be achieved.