Implications of Power-to-Heat on Transmission Expansion Needs: A Real Life Case Study

The decarbonisation process of the heating sector is gathering pace globally. Power-to-heat (PtH) with a thermal energy storage (TES) is one of the most promising solutions to fulfil environmental goals set forth locally or globally. However, a higher penetration level of PtH would dramatically increase demand for electricity, with this having implications on the existing grid infrastructures. In coherence with these aspects, our paper presents a quantitative as well as qualitative analysis on the impacts of PtH in terms of grid expansion needs and overall system performance (particularly, with respect to variable renewable power integration and emissions abatement). We employ a stochastic programming framework to perform the aforementioned analysis. Numerical results reveal that electrifying the heating sector would considerably increase grid expansion needs in the system. However, the impact highly depends on the growth of heat demand, and the extent of heating sector electrification.