Weather-induced variability of country-scale space heating demand under different refurbishment scenarios for residential buildings

The decarbonisation of residential heat through integration with the power system and deployment refurbishment policies is at core European energy policies. Yet, heat-electricity may be challenged, in practice, by large variability demand across weather years. Current approaches for simulation fail to provide insights about extent such many years benefits potentially brought nearly zero-energy buildings. To fill this gap, work develops an open-source space-heating workflow that applicable any country's building stock. workflow, based on a well-established lumped-parameter thermodynamic model, allows capturing sub-national weather-year mitigation effects refurbishment. For Italy, different lead variations up 2 TWh/day, lasting several days. Moreover, some regimes produce spatial asymmetries further complicate integration. 55% buildings constructed before 1975 could substantially mitigate oscillations, leading 31–37% reduction yearly demand, primarily colder regions. Intra-day variations, driven user behaviour, are not impacted refurbishment, calling simultaneous flexible generating technologies.