Power-to-Gas integration in the Transition towards Future Urban Energy Systems

Abstract Temperature levels play a key role in the thermal energy demand of urban contexts affecting their associated primary energy consumption and Renewable Energy Fraction. A Smart Heating strategy accounts for those supply features requiring new solutions to be effectively renewable and to solve the RES capacity firming. Power-to-Gas (P2G) is the way to decarbonize the energy supply chain as fraction of Hybrid fuels, combination of fossil ones and Renewable Hydrogen, as immediate responsive storage solution. While, Power-To-Heat is conceived as the strategy to modernize the high and medium temperature heating systems by electricity-driven machines to switch from Fuel-to-Heat to Electricity-to-Heat solutions. The authors investigated on different urban energy scenarios at RES share increase from 25% up to 50% in the energy mix to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the P2G applications. Primary Energy Consumption was chosen as the objective function. Three Reference Cities were chosen as reference scenarios. Moreover, the analytical models of P2G was designed and implemented in the reference energy system. The results of the twelve scenarios, four for each Reference City were evaluated in terms of amount of Renewable Heat delivered. Finally, the interaction between P2G and renewable heat production was evaluated.