The Paris Climate Agreement requires a rapid and efficient shift to renewable energies and a decarbonization of the energy system. Combined heat and power provision from biomass is one way to efficiently provide renewable heat. Despite this, many bioenergy plants in Germany are mainly used to generate electricity and the provision of externally usable heat still has untapped potential. In this study, we investigated gross quantities as well as the economically viable potential of Germany’s current bioenergy plant stock in supplying renewable heat. We used a top-down GIS modeling approach to spatially and explicitly assess the heat demand of three different categories of heat sinks at sub-municipal level. These included residential, commercial, and industrial areas, as well as large individual heat consumers. We then calculated the plant-specific heat sales potential for two different district heating network options. In addition, we developed a method for assessing the economic efficiency of the previously identified technical heat sales volume for a set of 20 different clusters of bioenergy plants. The results show that about 50% of the bioenergy plants have potential heat consumers in their immediate proximity. The overall technical heat sales potential for all three categories totals around 150 TWhth/a. However, this potential is not evenly distributed throughout Germany. Certain regions appear to be more favorable for investing in district heating networks powered by heat from biomass. The economically viable heat sales potential related to electrical energy generation ranges from − 0.128 to 0.160 €/kWhth. We concluded that, under certain conditions such as location or supply and demand structure, German bioenergy plants have the potential to provide a significant share to renewable energies in the heating sector. In addition, the heat sales potential is highly relevant for plant operators as the importance of heat as a business segment is set to increase. Furthermore, bioenergy plants could contribute 2.1% (16.3 TWhth/a) to the total demand for space heating in Germany (765 TWhth/a) when considering certain technical and economic constraints.

中文翻译：

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生物能源工厂在德国促进热能发展的潜力

《巴黎气候协定》要求迅速有效地转向可再生能源，并要求能源系统脱碳。来自生物质的热电联产是有效提供可再生热能的一种方法。尽管如此，德国的许多生物能源工厂仍主要用于发电，而提供外部可用的热量仍具有未开发的潜力。在这项研究中，我们调查了德国目前的生物能源工厂在提供可再生热量方面的总量以及经济上的潜力。我们使用了自上而下的GIS建模方法，在空间上明确评估了大城市以下三种不同类别的散热器的热量需求。这些区域包括住宅区，商业区和工业区，以及大型个人供热器。然后，我们针对两种不同的区域供热网络选项计算了特定于工厂的供热潜力。此外，我们开发了一种方法，用于评估先前确定的针对20个不同生物能源工厂群的技术热量销售量的经济效率。结果表明，大约50％的生物能源工厂在其附近有潜在的热量消耗者。这三个类别的整体技术热销售潜力总计约为150 TWhth / a。但是，这种潜力并未在整个德国平均分配。某些地区似乎更有利于投资以生物质热为动力的区域供热网络。与电能生产相关的经济可行的热量销售潜力为− 0.128至0.160€/ kWhth。我们得出的结论是，在某些条件下，例如地理位置或供需结构，德国生物能源工厂有潜力在供热领域为可再生能源提供很大份额。此外，随着热量作为业务领域的重要性不断提高，热力销售潜力与工厂运营商息息相关。此外，考虑到某些技术和经济限制，生物能源工厂可贡献德国空间供暖总需求（765 TWhth / a）的2.1％（16.3 TWhth / a）。