Towards Optimal Sustainable Energy Systems in Nordic Municipalities

• Municipal energy systems in the northern regions of Finland, Norway, and Sweden facemultiple challenges: large-scale industries, cold climate, and a high share of electric heatingcharacterize energy consumption and cause significant peak electricity demand. Local authoritiesare committed in contributing to national goals on CO2 emission reductions by improving energyefficiency and investing in local renewable electricity generation, while considering their ownobjectives for economic development, increased energy self-sufficiency, and affordable energy costs.This paper formulates a multi-objective optimization problem about these goals that is solved byinterfacing the energy systems simulation tool EnergyPLAN with a multi-objective evolutionaryalgorithm implemented in Matlab. A sensitivity analysis on some key economic parameters is alsoperformed. In this way, optimal alternatives are identified for the integrated electricity and heatingsectors and valuable insights are offered to decision-makers in local authorities. Piteå (Norrbotten,Sweden) is used as a case study that is representative of Nordic municipalities, and results showthat CO2 emissions can be reduced by 60% without a considerable increase in total costs and thatpeak electricity import can be reduced by a maximum of 38%.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Energiteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Energy Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

municipal energy system

multi-objective optimization

renewable energy sources

EnergyPLAN

Energy Engineering

Energiteknik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)