Implementation of biomass boilers for heating and domestic hot water in multi-family buildings in Spain: Energy, environmental, and economic assessment

In the residential sector, biomass offers great potential to achieve the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for climate and energy. With their policies, the different countries of the EU encourage actions in building stock such as the replacement of boilers with more efficient boilers and a greater use of renewable energy. This article explores the substitution of central fossil fuel boilers (heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas, and natural gas) with central biomass boilers to cover all heating and domestic hot water needs in multi-family buildings in Spain. Typical buildings from five cities located in each different climate zone of peninsular winter were chosen for this study. A thorough energy, environmental, and economic analysis is conducted. A reduction by as much as 93% in primary non-renewable energy consumption can be achieved, and CO2 emissions can decrease as much as 94%, resulting in better and higher energy performance certificate ratings. Despite the required investment, savings in all cases studied are achieved. The savings are greater with the increasing severity of winter weather, with a substantial reduction in energy costs.