Development, improvement and maintenance of high-resolution modelling for Residential Wood Combustion emissions

MetVed is a long-standing project that began in 2017 with the development the MedVed model, a methodology to estimate Residential Wood Burning emissions at high spatial resolution in Norway.

In 2020, the project entered its second phase, during which the MetVed model was significantly updated and improved. These updates included the incorporation of new emission factors and additional species, such as greenhouse gases (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O), as well as improvement to the model’s functionality. Among the key improvements are:

• New parameters to describe the emission altitude,
• Improved temporal variation of emissions,
• Inclusion of a holiday cabin emission module to better account for the distinct characteristics of emissions from cabins compared to residential buildings. For instance, cabins are more dispersed and often located in rural areas. The model distinguishes between alpine and coastal cabins, which have distinctive seasonal variations.

The MetVed model uses diverse datasets, including wood consumption for heating at county level, official emission factors, building and property type data at 250-meter resolution, meteorological data from observation, location of wood burning installation and other heating technologies from the fire and rescue agencies and the housing market, and energy consumption in residential buildings.

The MetVed model provides emissions at 250 meters resolution for Norway, covering both air pollutants (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, BC, OC, CO, PAH, Nox, PCBs, dioxins, NMVOC and SO₂) and greenhouse gases (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O).

These outputs are delivered with updated residential emissions to the Norwegian Environment Agency for use in the climate gas accounting at municipality level and air quality services, including air quality forecast.