The building sector is responsible for about 40% of the total energy demand and 33% of the CO2 emissions. Until 2050 the building sector should become CO2 free. Measures are biomass, geothermal sources, solar thermal and solar PV, and heat pumps. Biomass can be used directly for heating, however, cooling is only possible with thermally driven heat or compression systems driven by electricity from biomass power plants. The majority of geothermal systems are shallow systems, they require heat pumps to rise the temperature to a level required for heating. In the case of solar heating and cooling, heating is possible with solar thermal energy alone, cooling can only be realized using heat pumps, either thermally driven sorption systems compression systems driven by electricity from PV. Heat pumps are the main devices to achieve the goal to decarbonise heating and cooling. Other advantages are: they can use electricity from fluctuating sources like wind and PV, in combination with stores they can enable the operation electric and thermal smart grids; they will act as the main heat generation system for DHC systems, using renewable sources as well as heat recovered from industry, and they will be the key technology for efficient and CO2 free heating and cooling.
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