Heat pumps help to reduce emis­sions

Heat pumps gen­er­ate savings by redu­cing the need to buy increas­ingly expens­ive emis­sion permits.

In the 2015 Paris Climate Change Con­fer­ence, a binding global climate agree­ment was reached. The goal of is to limit the rise in average global tem­per­at­ure to well below 2 °C. Addi­tion­ally, the parties pledged to endeavor to take meas­ures that will limit global warming to under 1.5 °C.

The world’s carbon sinks capture more CO2 than release it into the atmo­sphere. The biggest natural carbon sinks are the soil as well as forests and oceans. They are estim­ated to lock up 9.5–11 giga­tonnes of CO2 annu­ally. In 2019, when con­ver­ted to CO2, the world’s total green­house gas emis­sions amoun­ted to 50 giga­tonnes.

Finland has pledge to reach carbon neut­ral­ity by 2035, EU by 2050, and China by 2060. These are ambi­tious goals. This means that we can release only as much CO2 to the atmo­sphere as our carbon sinks take up. After 2035, Finland should already start to capture more carbon than the country releases. To reach zero emis­sions, nations and com­pan­ies world­wide must work towards recov­er­ing the entire world’s green­house gas emis­sions.

This goal can be reached only through wide-​ranging changes in living, trans­port­a­tion, energy pro­duc­tion, industry, and con­sump­tion. Com­pan­ies, muni­cip­al­it­ies, and ordin­ary people are already taking action at their own ini­ti­at­ive. Tech­no­lo­gical devel­op­ment is making low-​emission solu­tions increas­ingly com­pet­it­ive. This is also one of the most import­ant goals for Oilon’s product devel­op­ment.

Emis­sions trading

Emis­sions trading is an EU-wide scheme where CO2-​generating plants have the oblig­a­tion to own a number of emis­sion permits for each unit of emis­sions they produce. These emis­sion permits are alloc­ated to oper­at­ors either free of charge or through auc­tions. Oper­at­ors can trade emis­sion permits with one another at their own dis­cre­tion within the EU carbon market.

The purpose of emis­sions trading is to keep the green­house gas emis­sions from indus­trial and energy-​producing plants as well as avi­ation within the European Eco­nomic Area within limits spe­cified for the entire European Union’s emis­sions trading sector.

The emis­sions trading scheme covers more than 40 per cent of the EU’s green­house gas emis­sions, and, in Finland, slightly less than half.

Plants covered by the emis­sions trading scheme must hold a green­house gas emis­sions permit issued by a com­pet­ent author­ity. The permit comes with mon­it­or­ing and report­ing oblig­a­tions, such as the oblig­a­tion to annu­ally report the number of emis­sions permits that cor­res­ponds to the plant’s emis­sions for the pre­vi­ous cal­en­dar year. One emis­sion permit is equal to one tonne of CO2. The scheme covers large indus­trial facil­it­ies, plants with a total nominal heat capa­city greater than 20 MW, and internal avi­ation within the EEA. In Finland, on top of that, the system includes 20 MW and smaller dis­trict heating plants.

Emis­sions permit prices at an all-​time high

Emis­sion permits are a major cost for com­pan­ies. The more expens­ive emis­sions permits are, the more effect­ively they steer com­pan­ies towards low-​emission pro­duc­tion. In Finland, for example, higher emis­sion permit prices have con­sid­er­ably increased the cost of using peat as a fuel. This price increase has the same effect as if the tax rate on peat had mul­ti­plied.

In the EU, the emis­sions trading scheme was intro­duced in 2005. After this, there has been great fluc­tu­ation in permit prices. The initial price was near 30 euros. For some time, the price was at zero and in 2010, it equal­ized to around EUR 5. Recently, emis­sion permit prices have increased dra­mat­ic­ally to between 60 and almost 100 euros (per tonne).

Heat pumps – the peak of modern climate solu­tions

Achiev­ing carbon neut­ral­ity requires many dif­fer­ent solu­tions, and heat pumps play a sig­ni­fic­ant role in this. Indus­trial heat pumps have a mul­ti­tude of applic­a­tions in indus­trial pro­duc­tion. They are well-​suited for dis­trict heating and cooling, and they work well in large prop­er­ties. They allow com­pan­ies to recycle energy or altern­at­ively tap into an increas­ing number of renew­able energy sources. Indus­trial heat pumps have a high capa­city and a high tem­per­at­ure output, and they are well-​suited for applic­a­tions that require accur­ate capa­city control and a wide oper­at­ing range.

Nat­ur­ally, there are tech­nical and eco­nom­ical lim­it­a­tions to where heat pumps can be used. Each case must be ana­lyzed sep­ar­ately. To achieve the goal of carbon neut­ral­ity, we must also utilize low-​carbon fuels and other renew­able altern­at­ives, such as hydro­gen. The amount of low-​emission or emission-​free energy needed is huge. In light of climate goals, fossil-​based energy sources are still used too often. Oilon’s innov­a­tions and R&D are, and will con­tinue to be, a major factor in achiev­ing emission-​free and low-​emission energy pro­duc­tion.

Oilon has com­pleted heat pump pro­jects for a wide range of dif­fer­ent use cases, and the tech­no­logy advances in leaps and bounds. As a solu­tion, heat pumps have matured. The use of large, energy-​efficient heat pumps is becom­ing com­mon­place, even though wide­spread adop­tion is still several years ahead. Heat pumps have a wide range of applic­a­tions. In the future, they will be a big help in redu­cing emis­sions.