An energy performance assessment method for district heating substations based on energy disaggregation

Abstract

Comprehensive assessment and diagnosis of the energy performance of district heating (DH) substations are important for the energy efficiency enhancement of DH. However, one major obstacle encountered in performing the comprehensive assessment is the lack of detailed sub-energy consumption data. In this paper, an effective energy performance assessment method for DH substations is presented, in which the idea of energy disaggregation is adopted. Firstly, data pre-processing is conducted to improve the quality of existing operation data. Secondly, Energy Signature (ES) models of buildings are established for heat consumers to disaggregate building heating energy consumption into four components, including the heat losses of inefficient regulation, the heat losses of hydraulic imbalance, the heat losses of building envelop and the heat losses of occupant behavior. And finally, based on the separate components and the calculated consumption of heat exchangers and pipes, the energy performance of DH substations is comprehensively assessed by appropriate reference benchmarks and their energy-saving potential is fully identified. The proposed method was applied to a DH substation in Shijiazhuang. The results indicate that the energy-saving potential of the substation accounts for 25.4% of the total energy consumption. The energy consumption can be reduced with the improvement of operation regulation (11.6%), hydraulic condition (5.9%), occupants’ energy-conservation behavior (5.6%), and others (2.3%). The information can provide insights into the operational optimization of existing DH.