Abstract
A micro-scale district heating network based on the operation of solar thermal collectors coupled to a long-term borehole thermal storage is modeled, simulated and investigated over a period of five years. The plant is devoted to covering the domestic hot water and space heating demands of a district composed of six typical residential buildings located in Naples (southern Italy). Three alternative natural gas-fueled back-up auxiliary systems (condensing boiler and two different technologies of micro-cogeneration) aiming at balancing the solar energy intermittency are investigated. The utilization of electric storages in combination with the cogeneration systems is also considered with the aim of improving the self-consumption of cogenerated electric energy; heat recovery from the distribution circuit is also evaluated to pre-heat the mains water for domestic hot water production. The performances of the proposed plant schemes are contrasted with those of a typical Italian decentralized heating plant (based on the utilization of natural gas-fueled non-condensing boilers). The comparison highlighted that the proposed configurations can decrease the primary energy consumption (up to 11.3%), the equivalent emissions of carbon dioxide (up to 11.3%), and the operation costs (up to 14.3%), together with an acceptable simple pay-back period (about 4.4 years).
Highlights
The building sector is responsible of a significant portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions because it consumes around 40% of the overall energy production; a large amount of this energy consumption is used to cover the heating demand [1].District heating (DH) networks, integrating renewable energy sources, are characterized by several benefits with respect to decentralized heating plants [2,3]
During the last years solar district heating systems achieved a great attention in the scientific community, with a significant number of worldwide applications [4,5,6]; this is because solar energy is and economically accessible during all year in most part of the world and its exploitation is supported by several economic incentives
The results showed that a reduction, with respect to the levels of 2018, of about 30% in the costs of battery makes the installation of batteries viable; in addition, they estimated that, in a 5- to 6-year horizon, these technologies would become economically attractive as a result of the strong decrease of the expected costs for the years to come
Summary
The building sector is responsible of a significant portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions because it consumes around 40% of the overall energy production; a large amount of this energy consumption is used to cover the heating demand [1]. District heating (DH) networks, integrating renewable energy sources, are characterized by several benefits with respect to decentralized heating plants [2,3]. During the last years solar district heating systems achieved a great attention in the scientific community, with a significant number of worldwide applications [4,5,6]; this is because solar energy is and economically accessible during all year in most part of the world and its exploitation is supported by several economic incentives. The underground is used as storage material in a BTES
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