Very‐short‐term multi‐energy management system for a district heating plant enabling ancillary service provision

Abstract

The study proposes the simulation study of a district-heating (DH) plant, located in the north of Italy, to provide automatic Frequency Regulation Reserve (aFRR). This work was carried out in the MAGNITUDE European project and consisted to model and simulate the plant. In particular, the plant devices were designed by grey-box models to replicate the behaviours. Also, the DH-network and the heat demand were modelled as functionality coupled to the device models. A multi-energy system (MES) plant manager coordinates the DH devices in a very short-term time interval while approaching and providing ancillary services. The designed models were simulated to replicate the basic behaviours of the plant. The outcomes were compared against the real plant time-series data set, showing a very good fitting. Afterwards, the plant provision of the aFRR market service was simulated. The results obtained showed how the coordinated devices satisfy the strict aFRR real-time constraints while supplying the DH-demand. The gained results go beyond the simulation case performed and suggest a two-fold perspective: the regulation has to pay greater attention to the amount of reliable regulating reserve arising from DH-MES and the DH-operators can increase the available resources to operate the plants.