Psst! It includes a lot of heat pump info!
Building operations account for 28% of global CO2 emissions! To reach climate goals, building decarbonisation needs to be a key priority. Kapacity.io‘s vision is to enable a carbon-neutral building sector.
The building sector accounts for almost 55% of global electricity consumption.
Heating is the most carbon-intensive building end-use. Moreover, heating generated about 4.3 Gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2019.
Cooling emitted around 1 Gigaton of CO2. Yet, space cooling is the fastest-growing building end-use with a 3% annual growth.
The vast part of building decarbonisation can be achieved with today’s technology! Actually, heat pumps are the cornerstone for sustainable buildings.
Calls to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions are growing louder every year, but emissions remain at unsustainably high levels. We see that researching demand flexibility services and innovation in business models can enable a sustainable building sector
The rapid advancement in heat pump technologies can provide cost-effective, energy-efficient heating and cooling services to enhance decarbonisation in the building sector.
As a result of improved living standards, the demand for air conditioners increases. By promoting more low-carbon technologies, the demand for cooling energy can be met sustainably.
Heat pumps can be tailored for both heating and cooling needs, which will come in handy: A third of the global population requires both heating and cooling.
Air-to-air heat pump sales have been growing by 10% annually globally since 2010; solar thermal water heater sales increased nearly 150%, and heat pump water heater sales by >200%.
By 2030, heat pumps could produce 9.2 Terawatt (trillion watts) of thermal power. There are many obstacles on the way, but we are embracing this development.
Heat pump integrations promote balancing electricity grid load, limit the use of on-demand fossil fuel power plants and enable a high share of variable renewables.
With integrated storage systems and demand-side response features, we can reduce system peak load and upgrades in generation and transmission capacity.
Development is underway in integrating heat pumps into the surrounding energy system, such as electricity grids, PV, storage and micro-grids.
Heat pumps enable innovations in the integration of heating, cooling and storage solutions as well as sector coupling.
With more regulatory changes to reward innovative business models and market designs, we can integrate flexible services to the power systems, and thereby support the roll-out of renewable energy. 
Cheers,
Sonja
References:
IEA: Energy Technology Perspectives 2020. https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-technology-perspectives-2020
IEA: Is cooling the future of heating? 2020. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/is-cooling-the-future-of-heating