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Several northern European countries have announced ambitious plans to become carbon neutral already before the year 2050. Recent research has, however, highlighted how potential bottlenecks in raw material and resource availability could significantly delay or hinder wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) expansion and continued biomass usage in parts of Europe. To address this issue, this paper assesses how exposed the national energy and climate plans (NECPs) of Finland, Estonia, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark are to resource limitations and techno-economic risks by reviewing and analysing 2030 NECP targets compared to statistical energy use data in these countries. The results indicate that the NECPs of Denmark and Germany are particularly exposed to risks related to global raw material availability, as Denmark plans to rapidly grow the share of wind and solar PV in electricity generation to 81% and 13% by 2030, respectively, followed by Germany, which outlines a 39% and 16% share of wind and solar PV in its national climate strategy. The NECPs of Finland and Germany are also shown to be vulnerable to limitations in biomass availability, as there is a significant disparity between the projected biomass usage and legally binding European Union (EU) targets for land use, land use change, and forestry (LULUCF) sector emissions in 2030 in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pursuit of Finland's carbon neutrality objective by 2035, integrating renewable energy sources into the power grid is essential. To address the stochastic nature of these resources, additional sources of flexibility are required to maintain grid stability. Meanwhile, district heating network (DHN) operators in Finland are decommissioning fossil fuel-based combined heat and power plants (CHPs) and electrifying heating systems with heat pumps (HPs) and electric boilers. A techno-economic assessment and the optimized operation of DHN-connected HPs and electric boilers in providing ancillary balancing services were explored in this study. The primary goal was to maximize the potential revenue for DHN operators through participation in the day-ahead electricity market and frequency containment reserve (FCR) balancing markets. Three interconnected DHNs in the Helsinki metropolitan area were optimized based on 2019 data and each operator's decarbonization strategies for 2025. HPs are expected to achieve the highest profit margins in the FCR-D up-regulation market, while electric boilers could generate substantial profits from the FCR-D down-regulation market. In contrast to other balancing markets studied, the FCR-N market exhibited limited profit potential. Sensitivity analysis indicated that spot electricity prices and CO2 emission allowance prices significantly influence the profitability derived from balancing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand response techniques can be effective at reducing heating costs for building owners. However, few studies have considered the dynamic marginal costs for district heating production and taken advantage of them for building-level demand response. In this study, a district heating network in the Finnish city of Espoo was modeled to define dynamic district heat prices. The benefits of two demand response control approaches for a Finnish office building, the demand response control of space heating and a thermal energy storage tank, were evaluated by comparing them to each other and utilizing them together. A 5 m3 storage tank was installed in a substation of a conventional high-temperature district heating network. A new demand response control strategy was designed to make the most of the storage tank capacity, considering dynamic district heat prices and the maximum allowed return water temperature. The results indicate that the demand response control of space heating and the storage tank cut district heat energy costs by 9.6% and 3.4%, respectively. When employing the two approaches simultaneously, 12.8% savings of district heat energy costs were attained. Additionally, thermal energy storage provides more potential for peak power limiting. The maximum heating power decreases by 43% and the power fee reduces by 41.2%. Therefore, the total cost, including the district heat energy cost and the power fee, can be cut up to 22.4% without compromising thermal comfort and heat supply temperatures to ventilation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]