Effects of climate and potential policy changes on heating degree days in current heating areas of China

Based on climate simulations over East Asia from a high-resolution regional climate model under RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios, we examine the impact of future climate change and heating policy changes on energy demand in current central heating areas over China using the heating degree days (HDD) and the number of the heating days (NHD) with different base temperature as the indices. Based on current heating policy in China, significant decreases of NHDs are projected, with larger decreases under RCP8.5 than RCP4.5. This decrease of NHDs would cause a northward shift of the decadal heating boundary line, with significant implications for infrastructure planning and development. Changing the heating policy currently in practice to one used in Europe and USA would cause an immediate jump in NHDs and in HDDs; as warming progresses in the future, these effects attenuate with time in an approximately linear trend under the two scenarios. Under RCP8.5, by 2050, the effects of warming climate would dominate over the heating policy change, and heating demand would be lower than the present day HDD and continue to decrease until the end of the century. Energy demand and the number of the heating days during peak winter shows no dependence on heating policy, as the policy-induced increase of energy demand would occur primarily during warmer months of the year. In addition, the indices are further weighted by population, and results show that increases in both HDDs and NHDs can be found in parts of northern China due to the increased population there by the end of the 21st century.