| dc.description.abstract | In the context of global warming the Dutch government aims to have carbon neutral heating in houses by 2050. In this heat transition natural gas, as the main source of heat for households, must be replaced with carbon free sources of heat such as green gas and heat pumps with PV-panels. Carbon free heat could also be supplied by a heat district. Furthermore, heat demand must be reduced through high levels of insulation in all houses. Analyses of previous efforts to reduce emissions from households have shown the barriers and the economic and societal effects of the heat transition. A recurring barrier is the shortage of skilled labor and that more in depth knowledge of the required labor is needed. However, the research that has been done on the labor requirements of this heat transition is generally based on a top down approach using e.g. expected investments as a proxy for labor. This research aims to provide more direct quantitative and qualitative insights in the required labor and the utilization of it by using a bottom up approach. This knowledge can be used by policy makers to better guide the heat transition and educational programs. To ensure sufficient depth of the research, the scope is limited to terraced houses. The main research question is: ‘‘How can the current Dutch labor supply be utilized most efficiently towards achieving carbon neutral heating before 2050 in all Dutch terraced houses?’. As the aim of this research is to illustrate how labor can be utilized, the labor supply has been held static and is defined as the current available labor that is deployable for the heat transition of terraced houses. Labor is expressed in terms of full-time jobs. The required labor for retrofitting houses and adapting the infrastructures was determined by collecting data from construction and installation companies, as well as from grid operator ‘Alliander’. Five main building periods of terraced houses and their average characteristics were identified. These characteristics were used to calculate the required labor per house for green gas, electrification, and district heating as well as the expected CO2-emissions of retrofitted houses from different building periods. The ‘Energiebesparingsverkenner’ of the RVO was used to model the annual CO2 emissions of retrofitted houses. Labor efficiency is expressed in terms of the required full-time jobs per ktonne CO2 reduction of annual emissions. With this efficiency and the deployable labor, five scenarios were constructed to explore how labor could be utilized most efficiently. The least amount of emissions with the least amount of labor can be made when heat pumps, PV-panels, and insulation measures are installed concurrently in the oldest terraced houses first. If no priority is given to the age of buildings, green gas, electrification, and a mix of sources have identical emissions as the bottleneck of their retrofitting pace is determined by insulation measures. Green gas requires no labor within the system boundaries of this research and as such is the least labor-intensive measure, but the availability of green gas might be limited. Labor for heat districts is relatively scarce and so more time is required to construct them resulting in more cumulative CO2 emissions than the other options. Insulation is the least efficient use of labor and it requires the most labor in all scenarios. But as a requisite measure for low-temperature heat districts and electrification, and as a measure to reduce the demand for green gas, it is a vital measure to be taken in the heat transition. The most efficient use of the current labor supply would be to implement a mix of carbon neutral heat sources combined with insulation measures as this would distribute the required labor over more professions thus reducing the overall scarcity of labor. | |
