Clean Heating Technologies

A Pilot Project Case Study from Northern People's Republic of China

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• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9789292693282
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Recursos de energía renovable

Nearly 40% of the world's population use open fires or simple stoves that burn wood or coal for heating. The inefficient combustion of these solid fuels deteriorates air quality, causes severe health problems, and generates significant carbon dioxide emissions. The impacts are aggravated in peri-urban and rural communities that lack access to clean district heating options. There is a need to identify and deploy appropriate decentralized clean heating solutions to replace coal-based heating. This publication presents an overview of clean heating technologies and the results of a pilot in northern People's Republic of China. The country's clean heating policy framework and the lessons learned from the online clean heating monitoring platform can guide the development of similar tools. The report provides recommendations in developing clean heating programs to stimulate market transformation toward more efficient and low-carbon heating.

1 Introduction

Background

Heat accounted for 50% of the world’s final energy consumption in 2018, of which over 50% is utilized for industrial purposes, 46% for space and water heating in the building sector as well as cooking, and the remainder for agriculture.¹ Globally, heat production remains heavily fossil fuel-based. Only 10% of heat is generated from modern renewables. Over the years, most energy transitions happened in the electricity sector. According to the World Bank, nearly 3 billion people, or 40% of the world population, use open fires or simple stoves burning kerosene, traditional biomass, and coal for heating and cooking. From those figures, over 1.88 billion people live in Asia and the Pacific, around 40% of the region’s population in 2018.²

Reliance on solid fuels is a major contributor to poverty. Moreover, the inefficient combustion of these solid fuels generates health-damaging pollutants, including black carbon, a major component of fine particulate matter (PM2.5),³ small particles (PM10), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and other emissions that lead to indoor and ambient air pollution. Over 97% of cities with over 100,000 inhabitants in low- and middle-income countries are exposed to air quality levels that exceed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) air quality guideline levels.⁴ The combined effects of ambient and indoor pollution cause about 7 million premature deaths every year, with over 4 million occurring in Asia and the Pacific. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the fossil fuels used for space and water heating in buildings contributes to around 8% of global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions,⁵ i.e., 3.04 Gt CO₂. The impacts are most profound in peri-urban, remote, and rural communities that are far from district heating networks and lack of affordable clean heating solutions.

The shift to clean heating is urgently needed to address air pollution and save millions of lives. It is also critical in achieving countries’ climate pledges, and their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. However, the heating sector is arguably more difficult to decarbonize compared to the electricity sector. This is because both heat production and consumption are less regulated and standardized. Heat can be generated from several different fuels at different temperatures and scales and utilized in various patterns that are more difficult to measure. Furthermore, while the power industry is in the spotlight, the heating sector has not received enough attention from policymakers. In Asia and the Pacific, only a limited number of countries have targets or implement enabling policies for low-carbon heating. Insufficient commitment from governments is slowing innovation and improvement in the heating industry.

Heating decarbonization requires more location-specific solutions to meet diversified heat demand deemed to have greater impact on end users. However, yet to be visible and apparent are affordable mainstream renewable sources for heat generation. Many of these low-carbon solutions are small scale, constrained by resource locations or low consumer awareness, which will likely have higher upfront costs and are less attractive to investors. Despite some growth seen by renewable heat, such as the increasing deployment of heat pumps and solar hot water systems, fossil fuels are likely to remain dominant in the heating sector,⁶ unless aggressive action is initiated.

Apart from carbon intensive production, a large amount of heat is wasted or lost during transportation and consumption due to old pipes, inefficient heating devices, and poorly insulated buildings, pushing heating demand higher. Some of this heat loss could be avoided by increasing energy efficiency or recovery for reuse.

ADB’s Response to Clean Heating

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has worked with its developing member countries since the 1980s to provide adequate heating services, starting with financing the construction or rehabilitation of combined heat and power plants and shifting to exploring renewable or hybrid district heating generation. Technical assistance projects and capacity-building events were also conducted, focusing on piloting and disseminating clean heating technologies. ADB points its policy to “support efforts to bring affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy to all, so as to eradicate extreme poverty and reduce social inequalities, and to support the low-carbon transition in Asia and the Pacific” through its 2021 Energy Policy.⁷ ADB has set the course for its Strategy 2030, which promotes quality infrastructure investments that are green, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive. Support for clean heating clearly falls within ADB’s operational priorities on tackling climate change, enhancing environmental sustainability, and making cities more livable. ADB also aims to create a more sustainable and resilient environment through infrastructure development and the creation of enabling policy environments in the region.

In Asia and the Pacific, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the major greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter due to its coal-dominated energy mix. As of 2016, the country’s coal consumption accounted for nearly 69% of the total amount in the region and its carbon emissions accounted for 57% of the region’s total, of which the heating sector is a signification contributor.⁸ ADB supports the PRC’s shift to cleaner heating by piloting several heating projects on clean fuels, mainly for centralized systems. Specifically, one ADB-supported project is the first-of-its-kind hybrid district heating system that uses gas boilers and wind-powered boilers in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Another is a smart multi-energy system using natural gas, solar thermal, recovered waste heat, and shallow geothermal for heating in Qingdao, while the geothermal district heating projects in Shaanxi and Hebei provinces promoted cutting edge solutions.

This document highlights ADB’s support for clean heating by identifying technologies with no or reduced inorganic (PM, SO_x, NO_x) and GHG emissions that can replace traditional household coal boilers and furnaces. It is a case study in northern PRC on the deployment of various clean heating technologies across different types of households and their potential to improve air quality.

Heating is a much-needed commodity in the PRC, most notably in the northern regions. In 2016, about 83% of the total heated area in northern PRC was heated by coal, using about 400 million tons of standard coal equivalent.⁹ Of this, around half was raw coals and half briquettes. Raw or dispersed coal is a low-grade type of coal burned inefficiently by households and small businesses—a cheap but polluting complement to district heating. Therefore, raw coal is identified as one of the primary causes of winter air pollution in northern PRC. Countries like Mongolia suffer from similar issues.

Official government data shows that only 95 of the PRC’s 338 cities had reached WHO’s air quality PM2.5 interim standard of 35 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) annual average in 2016, despite significant progress in increasing efforts to clean up the air.¹⁰ In 2017, the PRC issued a more stringent and decisive Three-Year Action Plan, which emphasized replacing small-scale raw coal-based heating with clean fuels.

Since the Paris Agreement, there has been a growing acceptance by provincial and local policymakers, as well as the private sector, of the need to cap and reduce coal consumption to meet the mandatory coal reduction and air quality targets set by the central government. However, challenges in the provinces are still substantial. Energy security remains a dominant factor, and coal is perceived as the most reliable energy source. The mentality of local leaders is largely fixed on coal-oriented industries, particularly in key coal-producing provinces like Shanxi. Capacity building, scientific knowledge development, regulatory frameworks and incentives, and awareness raising, especially in the heating sector, are lacking at provincial and local levels.

This report presents the results of a pilot study on clean heating technologies, and proceeds as follows:

Chapter 2 presents the rationale and basis for piloting clean heating solutions in northern PRC. The PRC’s heating policies and targets are presented at the national, provincial, and city levels to give an insight into how far the country has come in developing and supporting its goal toward a clean energy transition. Existing policy frameworks and targets at the city and county levels are discussed, including subsidies provided to households that undergo clean heating renovations.

Chapter 3 is the clean heating technologies catalog, which covers the technical description and applications of the technologies considered for the pilot project. It also includes a set of home insulation guidelines. Cost and emissions analyses of the technologies in comparison with coal and gas are also discussed.

Chapter 4 on the deployment of clean heating technologies explains the factors considered in the design of the project. Implementation criteria are also detailed from the selection of the villages and households, shortlisting of technologies, and matching of household to clean heating equipment.

Chapter 5 presents the results and key findings of the clean heating technologies pilot, specifically on the adaptability and performance of the four chosen technologies to the given environment and the costs associated with their use. It also discusses the potential environmental improvements resulting from shifting to cleaner technologies.

Chapter 6 discusses the online clean heating platform created to help the local government track the program and equipment performance. It discusses lessons learned and recommendations on how to improve and maximize the use of an online platform.

Chapter 7 concludes with lessons from the results and experiences in the implementation of the pilot project. The chapter lays out various measures that can be considered and serve as a guide for policymakers, manufacturers, and other relevant stakeholders on how to improve and better implement similar projects in the region. A multi-tier framework for classifying clean heating technologies is proposed.

The clean heating pilot project was initiated in 2018 through 2020, while this report was finalized in 2021. The pre-2018 data, including levels of carbon emissions and air pollutions, are quoted in this chapter and Chapter 2 to provide background information from when the project was planned. An up-to-date briefing on the country’s clean heating policy, achievement and new challenges are addressed in Chapter 7.

The lessons and recommendations from this report can be applied from both a technical and policy perspective. They can serve as a reference for policymakers and other stakeholders in designing appropriate clean heating programs and strategies for the effective displacement of coal burning for heat in peri-urban and rural areas. Private sector enterprises in the clean heating industry can draw from the experiences of households in using such equipment to advance their technologies and improve their services. The lessons learned from the development of an online clean heating platform are applicable to other online platforms that aim to monitor and facilitate the use of commercial and emerging clean technologies at scale.

2 Rationale

The Clean Heating Policy Framework

In northern PRC, temperatures fall far below the freezing point for 4–6 months each winter. Coal-based district and individual heating has been the most common and affordable solution for residents in the area. However, the coverage rate of district heating in northern PRC is still low at 28.21% in urban areas and 2.65% in rural areas, as of 2016.¹¹ The rest of the population burn raw coal in stoves and boilers at a small scale for heat. These boilers and stoves usually do not have adequate pollution control mechanisms and emit up to 10 times the number of pollutants compared to power plants.¹² During winter, up to half of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollutants in the area are caused by households’ burning coal, largely raw coal, for heating.¹³

The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and its neighboring regions, including Shanxi Province, are the most polluted areas in the country. These regions experience severe air pollution, with its annual average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration, far exceeding national and the World Health Organization (WHO) PM2.5 limits.¹⁴ According to a WHO report, in 2012, more than 1 million people have died because of air pollution in the PRC.¹⁵

Since the 1980s, air pollution control measures and policies have already been embedded in the Environmental Protection Law and the National Five-Year Plans for Economic and Social Development. In 2013, when air quality was deteriorating, the government announced a war on smog and launched the first Air Pollution and Control Action Plan. It set quantitative targets (e.g., a 12% reduction in PM2.5) for improving the air quality of key regions like Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and the Pearl and Yangtze deltas within specified time limits. Phasing out small coal-based industry boilers, limiting coal consumption, and switching from raw coal to clean fuels in Beijing and neighboring areas were highlighted in the plan, which is also in line with its NDCs and pledges for 2020 and 2030. Specifically, one of its policies, the 13th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development (2016–2020), provides for a maximum 58% share of coal in national energy consumpt...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables, Figures, and Boxes
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Abbreviations
• Measurement Units and Currencies
• Executive Summary
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Rationale
• 3 Clean Heating Technologies
• 4 Deploying Clean Heating Technologies
• 5 Results of the Pilot Project
• 6 Clean Heating Online Platform Results
• 7 Conclusions and Recommendations
• References
• Footnotes
• Back Cover