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Indicator Specification
Space heating and cooling is responsible for a large fraction of European energy use. Heating degree days (HDDs) and cooling degree days (CDDs) are proxies for the energy demand needed to heat or cool, respectively, a home or a business. Both variables are derived from measurements of outside air temperature. The heating and cooling requirements for a given structure at a specific location are considered, to some degree, proportional to the number of HDDs and CDDs at that location. However, they also depend on a large number of other factors, in particular building design, energy prices, income levels and behavioural aspects.
Space heating is responsible for a large component of European energy use, so a decrease in the use of space heating has the potential to lead to a significant decrease in overall energy use. An increase in cooling demand would off-set in part or completely the gains from a reduced energy demand for space heating and the effects resulting from a reduction in heating demand. While heating is delivered to end users in different ways (individual boilers fuelled by oil, gas, and coal, and electricity and district heating), cooling is delivered currently almost exclusively through electricity. As a result, a given increase in cooling demand is generally associated with higher costs, a higher increase in primary energy demand and larger impacts on the peak capacity of supply networks than the same decrease in heating demand.
In April 2013, the European Commission (EC) presented the EU Adaptation Strategy Package. This package consists of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change (COM/2013/216 final) and a number of supporting documents. The overall aim of the EU Adaptation Strategy is to contribute to a more climate-resilient Europe.
One of the objectives of the EU Adaptation Strategy is Better informed decision-making, which will be achieved by bridging the knowledge gap and further developing the European climate adaptation platform (Climate-ADAPT) as the ‘one-stop shop’ for adaptation information in Europe. Climate-ADAPT has been developed jointly by the EC and the EEA to share knowledge on (1) observed and projected climate change and its impacts on environmental and social systems and on human health, (2) relevant research, (3) EU, transnational, national and subnational adaptation strategies and plans, and (4) adaptation case studies.
Further objectives include Promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors through climate-proofing EU sector policies and Promoting action by Member States. Most EU Member States have already adopted national adaptation strategies and many have also prepared action plans on climate change adaptation. The EC also supports adaptation in cities through the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy initiative.
In September 2016, the EC presented an indicative roadmap for the evaluation of the EU Adaptation Strategy by 2018.
In November 2013, the European Parliament and the European Council adopted the 7th EU Environment Action Programme (7th EAP) to 2020, ‘Living well, within the limits of our planet’. The 7th EAP is intended to help guide EU action on environment and climate change up to and beyond 2020. It highlights that ‘Action to mitigate and adapt to climate change will increase the resilience of the Union’s economy and society, while stimulating innovation and protecting the Union’s natural resources.’ Consequently, several priority objectives of the 7th EAP refer to climate change adaptation.
No targets have been specified.
HDDs and CDDs are defined relative to a base temperature — the outside temperature — below which a building is assumed to need heating or cooling. They can be computed in different ways, depending, among other things, on the specific target application and the availability of sub-daily temperature data. The previous version of this indicator applied the methodology of Eurostat, which uses daily mean temperature only and has a jump discontinuity when daily mean temperature falls below the base temperature. This indicator uses an approach developed by the UK Met Office, which uses daily mean, minimum and maximum temperatures and does not exhibit a discontinuity. Note that this approach, being based on both minimum (Tn) and maximum (Tx) temperatures and not solely on the mean temperature (Tm), increases the accuracy of HDDs and CDDs for the purpose of gauging the impacts of climate change on energy demand, because the cooling of the environment depends more on Tx than on Tm, while Tn is more relevant for heating. The baseline temperatures for HDDs and CDDs are 15.5 °C and 22 °C, respectively. As a result of the methodological changes, the magnitudes of the trends between the previous version and this version of the indicator cannot be directly compared.
The aggregation of regional changes in HDDs and CDDs to larger areas can be done using area weighting or population weighting (with a fixed population). Population weighting is preferable for estimating trends in energy demand over large regions with an uneven population distribution, such as Europe.
Not applicable
Not applicable
The climatological input datasets for computing HDDs and CDDs for Europe combine temperature data with daily resolution from three different station datasets — the JRC’s MARS meteorological database, the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)’s Global Historical Climatology Network dataset and the European Climate and Assessment Dataset of the Royal Meteorological Institute of the Netherlands and from one gridded dataset (E-OBS versions 10 and 11). These datasets are considered rather robust. However, different definitions exist for computing HDDs and CDDs, which can lead to different magnitudes of calculated trends.
No uncertainty has been specified
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heating-degree-days or scan the QR code.
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