IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i12p3380-d571153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Supra-Regional District Heating Networks: A Missing Infrastructure for a Sustainable Energy System

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Moser

    (Department of Energy Economics, Energy Institute at the Johannes Kepler University, A-4040 Linz, Austria)

  • Stefan Puschnigg

    (Department of Energy Technology, Energy Institute at the Johannes Kepler University, A-4040 Linz, Austria)

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).

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Moser & Stefan Puschnigg, 2021. "Supra-Regional District Heating Networks: A Missing Infrastructure for a Sustainable Energy System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3380-:d:571153
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3380/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3380/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moser, Simon & Puschnigg, Stefan & Rodin, Valerie, 2020. "Designing the Heat Merit Order to determine the value of industrial waste heat for district heating systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Kapil, Ankur & Bulatov, Igor & Smith, Robin & Kim, Jin-Kuk, 2012. "Process integration of low grade heat in process industry with district heating networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 11-19.
    3. Moser, Simon & Mayrhofer, Julia & Schmidt, Ralf-Roman & Tichler, Robert, 2018. "Socioeconomic cost-benefit-analysis of seasonal heat storages in district heating systems with industrial waste heat integration," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 868-874.
    4. Lund, Henrik & Werner, Sven & Wiltshire, Robin & Svendsen, Svend & Thorsen, Jan Eric & Hvelplund, Frede & Mathiesen, Brian Vad, 2014. "4th Generation District Heating (4GDH)," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-11.
    5. Lubos Buzna & Limor Issacharoff & Dirk Helbing, 2009. "The evolution of the topology of high-voltage electricity networks," International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(1/2), pages 72-85.
    6. Lund, Henrik & Østergaard, Poul Alberg & Chang, Miguel & Werner, Sven & Svendsen, Svend & Sorknæs, Peter & Thorsen, Jan Eric & Hvelplund, Frede & Mortensen, Bent Ole Gram & Mathiesen, Brian Vad & Boje, 2018. "The status of 4th generation district heating: Research and results," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 147-159.
    7. Piacentino, Antonio & Duic, Neven & Markovska, Natasa & Mathiesen, Brian Vad & Guzović, Zvonimir & Eveloy, Valerie & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Sustainable and cost-efficient energy supply and utilisation through innovative concepts and technologies at regional, urban and single-user scales," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 254-268.
    8. Kavvadias, Konstantinos C. & Quoilin, Sylvain, 2018. "Exploiting waste heat potential by long distance heat transmission: Design considerations and techno-economic assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 452-465.
    9. Holmgren, Kristina, 2006. "Role of a district-heating network as a user of waste-heat supply from various sources - the case of Göteborg," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(12), pages 1351-1367, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moser, Simon & Puschnigg, Stefan & Rodin, Valerie, 2020. "Designing the Heat Merit Order to determine the value of industrial waste heat for district heating systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    2. Li, Haoran & Hou, Juan & Hong, Tianzhen & Ding, Yuemin & Nord, Natasa, 2021. "Energy, economic, and environmental analysis of integration of thermal energy storage into district heating systems using waste heat from data centres," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    3. Guelpa, Elisa & Bischi, Aldo & Verda, Vittorio & Chertkov, Michael & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Towards future infrastructures for sustainable multi-energy systems: A review," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 2-21.
    4. Carli, Raffaele & Dotoli, Mariagrazia & Jantzen, Jan & Kristensen, Michael & Ben Othman, Sarah, 2020. "Energy scheduling of a smart microgrid with shared photovoltaic panels and storage: The case of the Ballen marina in Samsø," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Fu, Lin & Li, Yonghong & Wu, Yanting & Wang, Xiaoyin & Jiang, Yi, 2021. "Low carbon district heating in China in 2025- a district heating mode with low grade waste heat as heat source," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    6. Mengting Jiang & Camilo Rindt & David M. J. Smeulders, 2022. "Optimal Planning of Future District Heating Systems—A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-38, September.
    7. Dahash, Abdulrahman & Ochs, Fabian & Tosatto, Alice & Streicher, Wolfgang, 2020. "Toward efficient numerical modeling and analysis of large-scale thermal energy storage for renewable district heating," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    8. Jimenez-Navarro, Juan-Pablo & Kavvadias, Konstantinos & Filippidou, Faidra & Pavičević, Matija & Quoilin, Sylvain, 2020. "Coupling the heating and power sectors: The role of centralised combined heat and power plants and district heat in a European decarbonised power system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    9. Østergaard, P.A. & Lund, H. & Thellufsen, J.Z. & Sorknæs, P. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2022. "Review and validation of EnergyPLAN," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    10. Doračić, Borna & Pukšec, Tomislav & Schneider, Daniel Rolph & Duić, Neven, 2020. "The effect of different parameters of the excess heat source on the levelized cost of excess heat," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    11. Persson, Urban & Wiechers, Eva & Möller, Bernd & Werner, Sven, 2019. "Heat Roadmap Europe: Heat distribution costs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 604-622.
    12. Østergaard, Poul Alberg & Werner, Sven & Dyrelund, Anders & Lund, Henrik & Arabkoohsar, Ahmad & Sorknæs, Peter & Gudmundsson, Oddgeir & Thorsen, Jan Eric & Mathiesen, Brian Vad, 2022. "The four generations of district cooling - A categorization of the development in district cooling from origin to future prospect," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    13. Wirtz, Marco, 2023. "nPro: A web-based planning tool for designing district energy systems and thermal networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 268(C).
    14. Michael-Allan Millar & Bruce Elrick & Greg Jones & Zhibin Yu & Neil M. Burnside, 2020. "Roadblocks to Low Temperature District Heating," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-21, November.
    15. Pieper, Henrik & Ommen, Torben & Elmegaard, Brian & Brix Markussen, Wiebke, 2019. "Assessment of a combination of three heat sources for heat pumps to supply district heating," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 156-170.
    16. Jangsten, Maria & Filipsson, Peter & Lindholm, Torbjörn & Dalenbäck, Jan-Olof, 2020. "High Temperature District Cooling: Challenges and Possibilities Based on an Existing District Cooling System and its Connected Buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    17. Fritz, M. & Plötz, P. & Schebek, L., 2022. "A technical and economical comparison of excess heat transport technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    18. Vandermeulen, Annelies & Van Oevelen, Tijs & van der Heijde, Bram & Helsen, Lieve, 2020. "A simulation-based evaluation of substation models for network flexibility characterisation in district heating networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    19. Selva Calixto & Marco Cozzini & Giampaolo Manzolini, 2021. "Modelling of an Existing Neutral Temperature District Heating Network: Detailed and Approximate Approaches," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-16, January.
    20. Rismanchi, B., 2017. "District energy network (DEN), current global status and future development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 571-579.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3380-:d:571153. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.