Abstract
To face the climate change and global warming issues, European countries have set new targets in order to reduce the CO2 emissions to 40% by 2030 and to 80% by 2050. The district heating networks, and in particular low-temperature networks, due to their efficient heat supply and distribution represent a key point for meeting these goals, as well as the renewable sources integration. Nowadays, in fact, about 40% of the energy consumed in Europe is for heating, most of which is provided by fossil fuels employment. This article concerns the smart district heating, namely, the possibility of a bidirectional energy exchange between the district heating network and the connected users. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the possibility of including a prosumer—that is, a customer who can both consume and produce heat—in an existing small/medium district heating network. To this purpose, an in-house–developed software has been applied to analyze whether and which user of the district heating network is more suitable to be set as prosumer and the effect of the installed distributed generation system on the network. The results show how the choice of a prosumer over another and how the amount of exchanged thermal power affect the performance of the network, with a consequent need of a modification in its operation and management.
Highlights
According to the recent legislations and policies, European countries have to reach new targets in terms of CO2 emissions
This study addresses the smart district heating topic with the main aim to investigate the possibility of converting the users of a given DHN into prosumers and how this action will affect the network performance
This article deals with the optimal allocation of a prosumer in an existing district heating network and on the influence of its produced thermal power on the network behavior
Summary
According to the recent legislations and policies, European countries have to reach new targets in terms of CO2 emissions. As it will be better explained in the following paragraphs, different scenarios are highlighted in the figure in order to point out a series of network configurations which represent different management and setting approaches. The introduction of prosumers into a district heating network allows the reduction of the expenditure on electricity for the required pumping power and for the thermal power introduced by the centralized power station This approach is coherent with the penetration of distributed generation, the increase in renewable sources exploitation, and the development of energy districts. Due to these positive effects, the transformation of one or more users of a traditional district heating network into prosumers should be encouraged, but the concepts at the basis of the network operation and management must be completely revised
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