Electricity dependency and CO2 emissions from heating in the Swedish building sector-Current trends in conflict with governmental policy?

From the second scenario it is seen that the current trend-contrary to the aim of the Swedish Governmental policy-shows an increase in electricity dependency for heating, mainly due to a large diffusion of heat pumps, but also due to installations of electrical floor heating and electricity heating systems installed in newly constructed one- and two-dwelling buildings. However, the options proposed in first scenario show that it is possible to reach significant reductions in the electricity dependency due to heating and in corresponding CO2 emissions. An analysis of the age structure of the heating systems shows that the transformation of the heating system is not completed until the year 2025, if new investments for replacement of heating systems are made only provided they have reached their economical life time, and only applying heating technologies which at present are known to be economically competitive. It can be concluded that future policies on transforming the energy system should be based on an analysis that takes the entire energy infrastructure (in this case of heating system) into account (e.g. not directed towards single technologies). More specifically for the region studied, which is considered representative for Sweden as a whole, policies should aim at installing heat pumps to replace electricity heating only in regions with low heat density where district heating is not competitive, in contrary to the present situation where heat pumps replace all types of heating systems.