Air quality impacts of electricity use in domestic heating: A comparative study for Ankara

In this study, existing air quality affects of current domestic heating systems in comparison to the electricity use alternative in Ankara have been analysed. For the winter season 1991-1992 heat energy used in Ankara for domestic heating has been calculated. For the hypothetical case of electricity use instead of the current domestic heating systems in the city, Industrial Source Complex - Short Term dispersion model has been used for six site alternatives and for two different thermal power plant technology, as 12 scenarios, having different emission characteristics in order to estimate ground level concentrations of SO2, NOx and SPM. The simulation results showed that even the most unreasonable hypothetical site selection alternative i.e., a thermal power plant located within the city, pollutant concentrations would have been much lower compared to the current state. A simplistic economical analysis has also been included.