This study aimed to simulate the sector-coupled energy system of Germany in 2030 with the restriction on CO2 emission levels and to observe how the system evolves with decreasing emissions. Moreover, the study presented an analysis of the interconnection between electricity, heat and hydrogen and how technologies providing flexibility will react when restricting CO2 emissions levels. This investigation has not yet been carried out with the technologies under consideration in this study. It shows how the energy system behaves under different set boundaries of CO2 emissions and how the costs and technologies change with different emission levels. The study results show that the installed capacities of renewable technologies constantly increase with higher limitations on emissions. However, their usage rates decreases with low CO2 emission levels in response to higher curtailed energy. The sector-coupled technologies behave differently in this regard. Heat pumps show similar behaviour, while the electrolysers usage rate increases with more renewable energy penetration. The system flexibility is not primarily driven by the hydrogen sector, but in low CO2 emission level scenarios, the flexibility shifts towards the heating sector and electrical batteries.
The European heating sector is currently heavily dominated by fossil fuels. Composting is a naturally occurring process in which heat is liberated from the composting substrate at a higher rate than the process needs to support itself. This difference could be harnessed for low-heat applications such as residential consumption, alleviating some of the impacts fossil fuel emissions represent. In this study, the composting heat recovery reported in the literature was compared to the energy demand for space and water heating in four European countries. A review of potential heat production from the waste representative of the residential sector was performed. We found that the theoretically recoverable composting heat does not significantly reduce the need for district heating. However, it can significantly reduce the energy demand for water heating, being able to supply countries such as Greece with between 36% and 100% of the yearly hot water demand, or 12% to 53% of the yearly hot water of countries such as Switzerland, depending on the efficiency of heat recovery.