Inter unit heat flows in a residence during district heating in a multistory residential building

Abstract

The paper presents investigations of space heating metering in a residence in a multistory residential building. The entire building is heated by a district heating system (DHS). The residence may be heated by DHS and/or electrical energy. The analyzed residence may be either the non-disconnected or disconnected from DHS. The residence has a low heat demand compared to the average heat demand of all DHS consumers. Space heating is simulated by using software EnergyPlus during the 6-month heating season with a weather file of Kragujevac, Serbia. Specially, it is analyzed how the district heating metering is influenced by inter unit heat flows from the neighbor residences. Then, the notion of heat stealing (theft) is explained. For the residence, the heat consumption coefficient inside the entire DHS is introduced to direct the special attention to the low heating efficiency of all heat consumers inside the studied DHS. In addition, the primary fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, and heat costs are calculated and discussed.