Thermo-economic and environmental analysis of integrating renewable energy sources in a district heating and cooling network

Abstract

This paper presents the technical, environmental, and economic evaluation of integrating various combinations of renewable energy sources-based systems in the expansion of a district heating and cooling network of a Technology Park near Barcelona in Spain. At present, a combined heat and power plant running on fossil fuels serves the heating, cooling, and electricity demand of the Park. However, this energy demand is expected to increase substantially in the coming years. EnergyPRO software was used to model the energy demand growth till 2030. Validation of the software application was done by making a base model using real plant data from the year 2014. The software was then used to project the energy supply based on three 15-year scenarios, having different combinations of renewable energy technologies, from 2016 until 2030. Primary energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and the net present value obtained in each scenario were used to decide the best combinations of renewable energy sources. The results of the study showed that presently, biomass boilers combined with absorption chillers and supported with solar thermal cooling are the most competitive technologies in comparison to ground source heat pumps for large DHC networks. This is mainly because of the lower primary energy consumption (624,380 MWh/year in 2030 vs. 665,367 MWh/year), higher net present value (NPV) (222 million € vs. 178 million €), and lower CO2 emissions (107,753 tons/year in 2030 vs. 111,166 tons/year) obtained as a result of the simulations.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09832-9
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > School of Engineering and Technology > Mechanical, Biomedical & Design
Funding Information: The paper has been written in the framework of the Smart ReFlex project (Smart and Flexible 100% Renewable District Heating and Cooling Systems for European Cities), co-funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Union by means of Gr
Additional Information: © Springer Nature B.V. 2019. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09832-9
Uncontrolled Keywords: District heating and cooling,Energy efficiency,Feasibility study,Renewable energy integration,Techno-economic evaluation,General Energy
Publication ISSN: 1570-6478
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2024 12:19
Date Deposited: 27 Jan 2020 10:33
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
https://link.sp ... 053-019-09832-9 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2020-01-01
Published Online Date: 2019-12-17
Accepted Date: 2019-11-15
Authors: Asim, Muhammad
Saleem, Saad
Imran, Muhammad (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-3057-1301)
Leung, Michael K.H.
Hussain, Syed Asad
Miró, Laura Sisó
Rodríguez, Ivette

Download

[img]

Version: Accepted Version

| Preview

Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record