Abstract
In analogy to electricity transmission networks, this paper analyzes the concept of supra-regional district heating networks (SR-DHN), connecting a large number of actors. Using a back-casting approach, a SR-DHN is assumed to exist and thus, implementation challenges, such as economic feasibility and energy losses, are circumvented in the first step (but are analyzed in the discourse). The paper then analyzes, in an interdisciplinary qualitative manner and supported by a case study, what technical, operational, economic and legal issues must have been resolved. Results show that the heat transmission network, being the backbone of the SR-DHN, is an expensive infrastructure, but is likely to become economic in a non-fossil energy system. By decreasing the reliance on single waste heat sources, SR-DHN allows longer payback periods and can thus be an enabler for using industrial waste heat. However, involving many actors requires comprehensive contractual foundations. The derived hypothesis is that SR-DHN, which is predominantly fed by waste heat, shall be operated with lower temperatures in winter (feeding the return while minimizing expensive winter losses) and high temperatures in summer (enabling alternative usages while accepting high but inexpensive summer losses).
Highlights
This paper aims to create a theoretical basis for the implementation of multi-actor supraregional district heating networks (SR-DHN), interlinked by the superior heat transmission network, and to look at SR-DHN from a systemic and interdisciplinary perspective
Based on the idea explained in the introduction section that the concept of SR-DHN is transferred from electricity transmission networks, a comparative analysis was performed
Plants are the backbone of supply. They constitute the benchmark for the costs of heat supplied to the local district heating networks
Summary
The resulting trend towards economies of scale seems evident, for example with large power plants in the gigawatt output range and large-scale pumped storage units, which would not fit into a small (locally limited) power network [1]. In the course of the energy transition, which brings with it a decentralization and fluctuation of generation, today’s large network forms the backbone of the potential to feed-in these renewables. This does not intend to downplay the problems of high proportions of renewable energy feed-in, but means, for example, that integrating a single PV plant is definitely less complex than integrating it into a small island network
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