Life cycle environmental and cost evaluation of heating and hot water supply in social housing nZEBs

This paper presents a comparative analysis of different space heating and hot water systems for a social housing project in Santurtzi, Spain. The building, comprising 32 apartment units and currently under construction, has been designed to minimize thermal energy demand, while ensuring comfort and quality of the internal environment for the social housing occupiers. The selection of the heating and hot water energy systems has been carried considering a life cycle perspective both for environmental and economic impacts. Different alternatives have been analysed which compare conventional gas boiler installation, which has been the norm for this type of social housing for the last decades, with various options based on heat pump technology. Life cycle analysis of the environmental effects of electrification of the thermal energy demand through heat pumps show a potential for reducing life cycle CO2 emissions. The economic evaluation done through life cycle costing, comparing investment, maintenance, replacement and operational costs of gas boiler with aerothermal and geothermal heat pump solutions, have shown however that gas heating solutions are still the most competitive economically. Increasing the overall efficiency of those heating and hot water systems that include heat pump technology, while reducing their uncertainty in operation is a key element to ensure competitiveness of heat pumps in the current market. The work presented in this article is part of an analysis carried within AZEB project ‘Affordable Zero Energy Buildings’, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 754174.