Abstract
Currently, district energy systems allow long-distance distribution of energy and the use of renewable energies, increasing their interest in the fight against global warming and the energy crisis. This paper presents the current deployment of heat and cold distribution networks in Spain in order to analyze their technical and economic potential, opportunities and future challenges. Subsequently, a comparison is made with the networks at an international level. It has been observed that heat and cold networks in Spain have increased substantially since 2013, but the installed power in 2019 of these systems to provide either heat or cold covers a very small proportion of the total demand. These systems in Spain are supplied mainly by biomass, natural gas or a combination of them, however, the use of renewable energy is still below the European average. It can be concluded that heating and cooling networks still do not have the potential to replace all the demand of the residential sector, although their implementation is important to achieve greater energy efficiency, more flexibility in supply, greater energy independence and to avoid the waste of energy resources. Thus, technical and financial barriers are identified.
Highlights
The energy used in different countries to the public supply of the ambient heating, water heating, process heating, cooking, ambient cooling, process cooling or refrigeration is very representative in their Primary Energy Supply (PES) Systems
This study aims to provide an overview of district energy systems, to analyze the deployment of the district energy system in Spain from 2011 to 2019 and to evaluate its technical and economic potential to identify opportunities and challenges
Recent data on heat and cold consumption and its energy mix are shown. It presents the estimated technical and economic potential data of the different feasible energy resources that could be used in the future for heating and cooling networks in the residential sector
Summary
The energy used in different countries to the public supply of the ambient heating, water heating, process heating, cooking, ambient cooling, process cooling or refrigeration is very representative in their Primary Energy Supply (PES) Systems. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), heat is the largest energy end-use demand, accounting for the 50% of global final energy consumption in 2018 [1]. It is estimated that energy demand for cooling in buildings will overtake demand for heating by 2070 [2]. Despite renewable energies are increasing their contribution to powering heating/cooling systems, fossil fuels continue being the main drivers of the heating system, while most cooling systems are powered by electricity [1,3]. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 7th International Conference on Power and Energy Systems Engineering, CPESE, 2020
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