Quantitative estimation of improvements in the efficiency of district heating substation control system

Abstract

Evaluation of energy performance of buildings is becoming increasingly applicable and constantly requires more and more precise forecasting of energy savings, which could be further interpreted in the economic evaluations of building renovation. Despite the development of a wide range of energy auditing methodologies and software tools, one important component has still not garnered enough attention and has no quantitative evaluation method. This component is energy savings attributed to improved performance of the heating control system. Currently, these savings are evaluated on the basis of arbitrary indices that have been extrapolated from real modernization projects. This approach is simplification and usually has no actual energy savings estimations. This article presents a method for the evaluation of energy savings attributed to improved performance of the district heating substation control system. The idea is based on employing the specific heat losses ( H) of a building. Theoretically, the evaluated H values represent ideal work performance of the heating control system and the actual collected data represent the current state of efficiency of the control system. The estimation of possible energy saving potential between ideal and actual H values results in quantitative energy savings due to the improved performance of the heating control system. This article presents in detail the method application sequence. It provides additional explanation on actual data processing mechanisms by applying regression analysis in order to determine base temperature and accumulated duration curves. Practical application : None of the energy audit methodologies or software tools answer the question on the amount of energy that can be saved due to improved performance of the heating control system. The method presented in this article is simple, saves on time and enables energy auditors to have a quantifiably based groundwork for estimation of possible energy savings attributed to improved performance of the heating control system.