Reducing carbon dioxide emissions

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions, along with other greenhouse gases, is central to combating climate change. Finland’s carbon dioxide emissions come from many different sources, of which the energy consumption of buildings still plays a significant role. According to Motiva’s 2022 estimate, energy use in buildings accounts for 30 % of the greenhouse gas emissions from final energy use in Finland. That is a significant figure. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is therefore important to focus on the energy efficiency of buildings alongside other measures. Energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions go hand in hand: when energy is saved, carbon dioxide emissions fall too. Energy-saving investments in older housing companies (taloyhtiöt) therefore often both reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of housing and can bring considerable savings in energy costs, making them very profitable financially. Our company provides energy consulting and energy efficiency studies aimed at finding financially attractive ways for housing companies to reduce their annual energy costs.

Which heating methods are recommended from an environmental point of view?

Heating methods recommended from an environmental point of view are those whose energy source is a low-emission energy carrier, with as little wasted energy as possible and as high an efficiency as possible. The Finnish Environment Institute (Suomen ympäristökeskus, Syke) maintains and develops an emissions database in which the development of production emissions for different energy carriers has been estimated far into the future. The figures presented here are the database’s estimates as of the time of writing (February 2024); the current values can be found in Syke’s co2data.fi service. In the emissions database, fossil fuels are assessed as having the most harmful climate impact, with a climate-warming effect of 0,306 kgCO2e/kWh. In other words, producing one kilowatt hour generates carbon dioxide emissions, or comparable greenhouse gases, in an amount whose climate impact equals 306 grams of carbon dioxide. Biofuels are assessed as considerably more climate-friendly forms of heating energy, with emissions estimated at 0,027 kgCO2e/kWh.

Often, however, the alternatives being weighed for heating energy are electricity and district heating. For the year 2020, the emissions database still rates district heating (0,147 kgCO2e/kWh) as slightly more climate-friendly than electricity (0,153 kgCO2e/kWh). By 2030, however, the situation is forecast to have developed so that district heating emissions would be 0,114 kgCO2e/kWh and electricity only 0,089 kgCO2e/kWh.

In terms of climate emissions, various heat pump systems can therefore be considered the most environmentally friendly heating methods or systems. Air-source heat pumps, air-to-water heat pumps and ground source heat pumps can transfer heat energy from the air or the ground for use in the building with very low electricity consumption. By making use of the phase change of refrigerants, heat pumps can produce more than four kilowatt hours of heat energy for the building’s heating system from one kilowatt hour of electricity. This cuts climate emissions to a quarter compared with direct electric heating.