This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2023
Automated separation of existing district heating networks for the utilisation of available heat sources
Automated separation of existing district heating networks for the utilisation of available heat sources
Integrating available waste heat and renewable heat sources into district heating systems is essential to replace the mainly fossil-based heat supply of the building sector. However, integrating a heat source into an existing district heating system can be challenging, e.g., an unfavourable location...
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Personal Name(s): | Stock, Jan (Corresponding author) |
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Xhonneux, André / Müller, Dirk | |
Contributing Institute: |
Modellierung von Energiesystemen; IEK-10 |
Imprint: |
2023
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Conference: | Conference: 9th International Conference on Smart Energy Systems, Copenhagen (Denmark), 2023-09-22 - 2023-09-23 |
Document Type: |
Conference Presentation |
Research Program: |
Design, Operation and Digitalization of the Future Energy Grids |
Subject (ZB): | |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
Integrating available waste heat and renewable heat sources into district heating systems is essential to replace the mainly fossil-based heat supply of the building sector. However, integrating a heat source into an existing district heating system can be challenging, e.g., an unfavourable location of the heat source to the network structure can lead to pressure cones. Furthermore, the temperature levels of available heat sources often do not match the network temperatures, so a heat pump system is required to raise the heat source temperature. Alternatively, the temperature of the district heating network can be reduced accordingly to directly use a low-temperature heat source, which requires additional adaptions at many supplied buildings. The resulting difficulties that arise while integrating heat sources in an existing district heating system can be tackled by, e.g., separating the network structure into two independent networks, where the utilised heat source supplies the separated network and the conventional heat source still supplies the remaining network. In this way, the operation of the remaining network is only slightly affected, as only some network branches are separated, which makes difficult control adaptions for the entire district heating system unnecessary. For efficient usage of the newly utilised heat source, the separated network forming a new standalone district heating system could be further adapted with less effort than adapting the whole system. In this work, we present a methodology for the automated identification of suitable separation options for existing district heating networks. We apply a clustering algorithm that identifies clusters in the network topology. Based on these clusters and the new heat source's geographical location and heat capacity, we derive possible options for network separation. For all options, a Modelica simulation model is automatically generated and executed to verify the operability of both the separated and the remaining network. In addition, we evaluate the options for network separation by deriving key performance indicators resulting in the most beneficial separation option to integrate the new heat source from both an economic and an ecological point of view. |