heating supply
Renewables currently provide 6% of OECD Asia Oceania’s energy demand for heat supply, the main contribution coming from the use of biomass. The lack of district heating networks is a severe structural barrier to the large scale utilisation of geothermal and solar thermal energy. In the Energy [R]evolution scenario, renewables provide 47% of OECD Asia Oceania’s total heat demand in 2030 and 90% in 2050.
- Energy efficiency measures can decrease the current demand for heat supply by 13%, in spite of improving living standards.
- For direct heating, solar collectors, biomass/biogas as well as geothermal energy are increasingly substituting for fossil fuel-fired systems.
- The introduction of strict efficiency measures e.g. via strict building standards and ambitious support programms for renewable heating systems are needed to achieve economies of scale within the next 5 to 10 years.
Table 5.62 shows the development of the different renewable technologies for heating in OECD Asia Oceania over time. Up to 2020 biomass will remain the main contributors of the growing market share. After 2020, the continuing growth of solar collectors and a growing share of geothermal heat pumps will reduce the dependence on fossil fuels.

