Impact of Heat Pumps, Rooftop PV, and Hydrogen Blending on Gas-Electricity Distribution Networks in Northeast US

The building sector is responsible for about 7% of overall greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Cutting the emissions by electrifying heating and cooling supply through heat pumps (HPs) leads to an increase in electricity demand and potential overloading of lines and transformers in electricity distribution systems. Although many studies investigate the maximum potential for HPs in existing distribution systems in Europe, they neglect a potential relieving effect of combining HPs with rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems as well as the consequence of coupling the electricity and gas system at distribution level. Hence, we investigate the effect of HPs and rooftop PV systems in a representative distribution system in Northeast US and the potential of coupling electricity and gas distribution systems. We show that generally no overloading in average US electric distribution systems occurs even under high realistic HP and PV adoption rates, 40% and 26% respectively. Moreover, our results show that combining HPs and rooftop PV reduces the impact on the distribution system throughout the year with the greatest reduction in spring and fall. In contrast, the potential for injecting hydrogen on distribution level is technically very limited and not economic. Under a 20vol.-% blending strategy, CO textsubscript 2 emissions would barely decrease 7%, while energy costs would skyrocket due to the high cost of producing green hydrogen from electrolysis against blue hydrogen from steam methane reforming. Moreover, electrolyzers (ELZs) at distribution level are neither able nor needed to reduce congestion in the electricity system.

Automated summary

The building sector contributes about 7% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. By electrifying heating and cooling supply with heat pumps (HPs), it could lead to increased electricity demand and potential overload in distribution systems. This study investigates the impact of HPs and rooftop PV systems in a representative distribution system in Northeast US, and the potential of coupling electricity and gas distribution systems. Results show that combining HPs and PV systems can reduce the impact on the distribution system, while hydrogen injection on distribution level is technically limited and not economically viable.