Thermodynamic sustainability assessment for heating of residential building

More than one third of the world’s primary energy demand refers to residential sector. Heating is considered as one of the main part of the energy consumption in buildings. In this study, a thermodynamic sustainability assessment analysis of different energy sources for heating of residential building, with net floor heated area of 162 m2, for Belgrade weather data, was presented. Five options of energy sources were studied, namely: coal, natural gas, electricity, district heating and air-water heat pump. Energy and exergy analyses were conducted and appropriate efficiencies were determined. Energy and exergy flows in boundaries of the building and in the whole chain from primary to final values were analyzed. The environmental impact factor and exergetic sustainability index were determined for all considered energy sources. The exergy efficiency is very low in all analyzed cases, which further implies poor thermodynamic compatibility of energy quality from the supplied side and the energy used for building heating. It was shown that the highest exergy efficiency is for the case of heat pump utilization (about 6%), due to the energy used from environment. The minimum environmental impact factor (15.37) and maximum exergetic sustainability index (0.065) were found for the case of heat pump utilization.