Norway has in recent years often been referred to as the future “green battery” of the European energy system due to its abundant hydro resources. Already today, Norway functions as a “virtual green battery” by importing excess electricity from Europe and exporting electricity when Europe needs it. The Norwegian energy system is largely based on electricity, including the heating sector, which could potentially limit the export capacity.

In this master thesis it was investigated how a shift from individual electric heating to DH would affect the operation of the Norwegian energy system and which potential barriers could be identified for such a shift.

Using the simulation tool EnergyPLAN, the operation of the Norwegian energy system was simulated for a Reference scenario and four designed DH scenarios based on DH production from biomass (25% shift) and HP’s (25%, 50%, 100% shift).

It was concluded that a shift from DH would affect the total electricity demand in the Norwegian system, which in turn would free up potential flexible production capacity that could contribute positively to Norway’s role as a “virtual green battery” of Europe. It was, however, also concluded that the dammed hydro power did not respond to the change in electricity demand, due to how this was modelled in EnergyPLAN. It is expected that the demand response would be better in reality, and further investigation of this is therefore needed to conclude on the flexibility within the Norwegian energy system.

Barriers were identified in the organisational framework for DH and in the existing infrastructure for DH. It was concluded that the most significant barrier is the lack of infrastructure for waterborne heating systems in the existing building mass, as this would make a shift to DH a large one time expenditure for potential customers.