These results appear very promising, and since Italy presents a very peculiar territory, they also suggest obtaining even higher results in countries where the environment may be intrinsically more suitable for a technology like DH. Indeed, Italy presents a variegat- ed territory and different climate conditions, passing from the northern regions with cold winters to central and southern regions characterized by a mild Medi- terranean climate. Moreover, it presents a widely un- even demographic distribution, with very dense met- ropolitan cities such as Milan and Rome and sparsely populated areas along the Alps, the Apennines, and in the two major islands, mainly. Despite this peculiar territory conformation, a four- fold DH expansion can be obtained based on renew- ables and existing excess heat sources. This confirms the important role that district heating can have in mitigating climate change and in facing the current energy crisis in Italy and globally. Regarding the visualization of the results, in the map, it is possible to see the heat demand clusters represent- ed as orange polygons, the heat sources described as points, and the optimal heat fluxes as directed arrows.
same amount of supplied heat is met by any alterna- tive individual heating solution (e.g., natural gas boil- ers, air or water heat pumps). The optimization algo- rithm, aiming to minimize the system’s overall cost, identifies the areas where DH is competitive to any lo- cal technology. It indicates the optimal heat demand clusters, the heat sources to be connected, and how (along which network path). The result of the meth- odology is the definition of DH potential in Italy on an annual basis and based on an optimally designed net- work, thus with a high spatial resolution. Results This section deals with the results obtained by apply- ing the developed methodology to the case study in Italy. DH potential in the country in terms of quantity is presented in Figure 2. At the same time, the identi- fied optimal paths are shown in Figure 3 in a portion of the Italian map for greater clarity. All the results can be explored interactively in the web map created in ArcGIS: https://arcg.is/0vvO4H. Renewables- and excess heat-based DH in Italy can meet a heat demand of 38 TWh annually and given the minimum cost for the overall system. It corre- sponds to 12% of the estimated heat demand, about 329 TWh/year. A four-fold expansion is envisaged since DH currently covers only 3% of the overall heat demand.
Geothermal energy Solar Thermal energy Thermoelectric plants Industriel excess heat
Figure 2: Estimated DH potential in Italy in terms of covered heat demand
Figure 3:
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