Carbon reduction benefits of heat pump in medium-low temperature heat production

In the future, the proportion of green electricity in energy will be higher and higher, and the end energy will be transformed to electrification. As the most effective way of electric heating, heat pump will become a reliable path to achieve carbon neutrality in the heating field. In this paper, the carbon emission factor method is used to quantitatively analyse the carbon reduction benefits of heat pump technology in medium-low temperature heat production in buildings, industry and agriculture. The results show that under the scenario of high growth rate of heat pump, the total carbon reduction of building heating and hot water supply, industrial medium-low temperature heating and agricultural environment regulation in 2060 will be 2.506 billion tons, which is 65% compared with the current emission reduction. Among the potential emission reductions, heat pumps emission reduction reaches 1.453 billion tons, equivalent to 14.7% of Chinas total carbon emissions now, while the power side and demand side emission reduction are 344 million tons and 567 million tons respectively. In addition, the expansion of other low-carbon heating also reduces emissions by 142 million tons. With the progress of technology, heat pump will become an inevitable choice to replace fossil energy and achieve carbon neutrality in the field of medium-low temperature heating. Although it is obvious to save electricity compared with direct electric heating, the rapid development of heat pump increases the load of the power grid. Therefore, the application of heat pump in appropriate scenarios should be actively used for daily peak adjustment of the power grid and the flexible power consumption of “demand side response” should be implemented.