VALUE OF DISTRICT HEATING HEAT SOURCE DESIGN AND STORAGE
By John Tang Jensen, District Heating Specialist
The advantages of having a district heating system for heating buildings are multiple, and this article investigates investment benefits compared to individual solutions and how heat source design, including storage, can minimise investments and costs by com- bining different fuels, technologies, and sources.
Introduction Heat source design for district heating can save investments compared to individual heat source design in four different ways: Reducing extra individual capacity need Reducing capacity demand
In this article, benefits from different heat source designs are made by an example, and it is additionally investigated what influence heat storage will have on both investments and on heat production price if the storage is used to optimise the costs for electricity by using a heat pump, an electric boiler, and income if using a natural gas combined heat and power (CHP) unit. The following standard data are used to keep the comparisons simple: Table 1 shows basic data.
Reducing cost with classic heat source design Reducing costs by combining technologies
Basic data Annual heat demand
100,000
MWh
Capacity demand per household
12.0
kW
Investment of 12 kW individual heat pump air-to-water, including installation
14,721
£/unit
Number of households
7,143 105.2
households
Total investment in individual heat pumps
Million £
Energy demand per household annual
14
MWh
Tap water Demand
20 %
Heat loss if District heating
17%
Table 1: Basic scenario parameters. Investment data from the Danish Technology catalog.
18 HOTCOOL no.6 2024
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