IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v107y2016icp431-442.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Method for reducing excess heat supply experienced in typical Chinese district heating systems by achieving hydraulic balance and improving indoor air temperature control at the building level

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Lipeng
  • Gudmundsson, Oddgeir
  • Thorsen, Jan Eric
  • Li, Hongwei
  • Li, Xiaopeng
  • Svendsen, Svend

Abstract

A common problem with Chinese district heating systems is that they supply more heat than the actual heat demand. The reason for this excess heat supply is the general failure to use control devices to adjust the indoor temperature and flow in the building heating systems in accordance with the actual heat demand. This results in 15–30% of the total supplied heat being lost. This paper proposes an integrated approach that aims to reduce the excess heat loss by introducing pre-set thermostatic radiator valves combined with automatic balancing valves. Those devices establish hydraulic balance, and stabilize indoor temperatures. The feasibility and the energy consumption reduction of this approach were verified by means of simulation and a field test. By moving the system from centrally planned heat delivery to demand-driven heat delivery, excess heat loss can be significantly reduced. Results show that once the hydraulic balance is achieved and indoor temperatures are controlled with this integrated approach, 17% heat savings and 42.8% pump electricity savings can be achieved. The energy savings will also have a positive environmental effect with seasonal reductions of 11 kg CO2, 0.1 kg SO2, and 0.03 kg NOx per heating square meter for a typical case in Harbin.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Lipeng & Gudmundsson, Oddgeir & Thorsen, Jan Eric & Li, Hongwei & Li, Xiaopeng & Svendsen, Svend, 2016. "Method for reducing excess heat supply experienced in typical Chinese district heating systems by achieving hydraulic balance and improving indoor air temperature control at the building level," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 431-442.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:107:y:2016:i:c:p:431-442
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.03.138
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544216303917
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2016.03.138?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Persson, Urban & Werner, Sven, 2012. "District heating in sequential energy supply," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 123-131.
    2. Zhang, Hui & Zhang, Bing & Bi, Jun, 2015. "More efforts, more benefits: Air pollutant control of coal-fired power plants in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1-9.
    3. Münster, Marie & Morthorst, Poul Erik & Larsen, Helge V. & Bregnbæk, Lars & Werling, Jesper & Lindboe, Hans Henrik & Ravn, Hans, 2012. "The role of district heating in the future Danish energy system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 47-55.
    4. Jing, Z.X. & Jiang, X.S. & Wu, Q.H. & Tang, W.H. & Hua, B., 2014. "Modelling and optimal operation of a small-scale integrated energy based district heating and cooling system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 399-415.
    5. Li, Jun & Colombier, Michel & Giraud, Pierre-Noël, 2009. "Decision on optimal building energy efficiency standard in China--The case for Tianjin," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2546-2559, July.
    6. Jie, Pengfei & Tian, Zhe & Yuan, Shanshan & Zhu, Neng, 2012. "Modeling the dynamic characteristics of a district heating network," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 126-134.
    7. Persson, Urban & Werner, Sven, 2011. "Heat distribution and the future competitiveness of district heating," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 568-576, March.
    8. Chen, Xia & Wang, Li & Tong, Lige & Sun, Shufeng & Yue, Xianfang & Yin, Shaowu & Zheng, Lifang, 2013. "Energy saving and emission reduction of China's urban district heating," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 677-682.
    9. Axel Baeumler & Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez & Shomik Mehndiratta, 2012. "Sustainable Low-Carbon City Development in China," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12330.
    10. Liu, Lanbin & Fu, Lin & Jiang, Yi & Guo, Shan, 2011. "Major issues and solutions in the heat-metering reform in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 673-680, January.
    11. Connolly, D. & Lund, H. & Mathiesen, B.V. & Werner, S. & Möller, B. & Persson, U. & Boermans, T. & Trier, D. & Østergaard, P.A. & Nielsen, S., 2014. "Heat Roadmap Europe: Combining district heating with heat savings to decarbonise the EU energy system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 475-489.
    12. Wang, Hai-Chao & Jiao, Wen-Ling & Lahdelma, Risto & Zou, Ping-Hua, 2011. "Techno-economic analysis of a coal-fired CHP based combined heating system with gas-fired boilers for peak load compensation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 7950-7962.
    13. Fang, Hao & Xia, Jianjun & Zhu, Kan & Su, Yingbo & Jiang, Yi, 2013. "Industrial waste heat utilization for low temperature district heating," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 236-246.
    14. Xu, Peng & Xu, Tengfang & Shen, Pengyuan, 2013. "Energy and behavioral impacts of integrative retrofits for residential buildings: What is at stake for building energy policy reforms in northern China?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 667-676.
    15. 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.
    16. Yan, Ding & Zhe, Tian & Yong, Wu & Neng, Zhu, 2011. "Achievements and suggestions of heat metering and energy efficiency retrofit for existing residential buildings in northern heating regions of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 4675-4682, September.
    17. Jiang, X.S. & Jing, Z.X. & Li, Y.Z. & Wu, Q.H. & Tang, W.H., 2014. "Modelling and operation optimization of an integrated energy based direct district water-heating system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 375-388.
    18. Yan, Aibin & Zhao, Jun & An, Qingsong & Zhao, Yulong & Li, Hailong & Huang, Yrjö Jun, 2013. "Hydraulic performance of a new district heating systems with distributed variable speed pumps," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 876-885.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhou, Chenghan & Jia, Hongjie & Jin, Xiaolong & Mu, Yunfei & Yu, Xiaodan & Xu, Xiandong & Li, Binghui & Sun, Weichen, 2023. "Two-stage robust optimization for space heating loads of buildings in integrated community energy systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).
    2. Vannahme, Anna & Ehrenwirth, Mathias & Schrag, Tobias, 2024. "Development and application of a guideline for assessing optimization potentials for district heating systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    3. Yu, Junqi & Liu, Qite & Zhao, Anjun & Chen, Shiyu & Gao, Zhikun & Wang, Fu & Zhang, Rui, 2021. "A distributed optimization algorithm for the dynamic hydraulic balance of chilled water pipe network in air-conditioning system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    4. Wang, Yang & Zhang, Shanhong & Chow, David & Kuckelkorn, Jens M., 2021. "Evaluation and optimization of district energy network performance: Present and future," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    5. Liu, Guoqiang & Zhou, Xuan & Yan, Junwei & Yan, Gang, 2021. "A temperature and time-sharing dynamic control approach for space heating of buildings in district heating system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    6. Liu, Zhikai & Zhang, Huan & Wang, Yaran & You, Shijun & Dai, Ting & Jiang, Yan, 2024. "Evaluation of the controllability of multi-family building with radiator heating systems: A frequency domain approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    7. Yuan, Jianjuan & Wang, Chendong & Zhou, Zhihua, 2019. "Study on refined control and prediction model of district heating station based on support vector machine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. Tommy Rosén & Louise Ödlund, 2019. "Active Management of Heat Customers Towards Lower District Heating Return Water Temperature," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-20, May.
    9. Che, Zichang & Sun, Jingchao & Na, Hongming & Yuan, Yuxing & Qiu, Ziyang & Du, Tao, 2023. "A novel method for intelligent heating: On-demand optimized regulation of hydraulic balance for secondary networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    10. Wang, Y. & Mauree, D. & Sun, Q. & Lin, H. & Scartezzini, J.L. & Wennersten, R., 2020. "A review of approaches to low-carbon transition of high-rise residential buildings in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Li, Hui & Ni, Long & Yao, Yang & Sun, Cheng, 2020. "Annual performance experiments of an earth-air heat exchanger fresh air-handling unit in severe cold regions: Operation, economic and greenhouse gas emission analyses," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 25-37.
    12. Zhou, Chaohui & Ni, Long & Li, Jun & Lin, Zeri & Wang, Jun & Fu, Xuhui & Yao, Yang, 2019. "Air-source heat pump heating system with a new temperature and hydraulic-balance control strategy: A field experiment in a teaching building," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 148-161.
    13. Jia, Hongjie & Wang, Xiaoyu & Jin, Xiaolong & Cheng, Lin & Mu, Yunfei & Yu, Xiaodan & Wei, Wei, 2024. "Optimal pricing of integrated community energy system for building prosumers with P2P multi-energy trading," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    14. Ashfaq, Asad & Ianakiev, Anton, 2018. "Investigation of hydraulic imbalance for converting existing boiler based buildings to low temperature district heating," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 200-212.
    15. Kwan, Trevor Hocksun & Wu, Xiaofeng & Yao, Qinghe, 2018. "Integrated TEG-TEC and variable coolant flow rate controller for temperature control and energy harvesting," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 448-456.
    16. Song, Jiancai & Bian, Tianxiang & Xue, Guixiang & Wang, Hanyu & Shen, Xingliang & Wu, Xiangdong, 2023. "Short-term forecasting model for residential indoor temperature in DHS based on sequence generative adversarial network," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 348(C).
    17. Hennessy, Jay & Li, Hailong & Wallin, Fredrik & Thorin, Eva, 2018. "Towards smart thermal grids: Techno-economic feasibility of commercial heat-to-power technologies for district heating," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 766-776.

    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. Sayegh, M.A. & Danielewicz, J. & Nannou, T. & Miniewicz, M. & Jadwiszczak, P. & Piekarska, K. & Jouhara, H., 2017. "Trends of European research and development in district heating technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 68(P2), pages 1183-1192.
    2. 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.
    3. Werner, Sven, 2017. "International review of district heating and cooling," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 617-631.
    4. Li, Yu & Rezgui, Yacine & Zhu, Hanxing, 2017. "District heating and cooling optimization and enhancement – Towards integration of renewables, storage and smart grid," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 281-294.
    5. Zhang, Lipeng & Xia, Jianjun & Thorsen, Jan Eric & Gudmundsson, Oddgeir & Li, Hongwei & Svendsen, Svend, 2016. "Technical, economic and environmental investigation of using district heating to prepare domestic hot water in Chinese multi-storey buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(P1), pages 281-292.
    6. Averfalk, Helge & Werner, Sven, 2020. "Economic benefits of fourth generation district heating," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    7. Olsson, Linda & Wetterlund, Elisabeth & Söderström, Mats, 2015. "Assessing the climate impact of district heating systems with combined heat and power production and industrial excess heat," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 31-39.
    8. Lake, Andrew & Rezaie, Behanz & Beyerlein, Steven, 2017. "Review of district heating and cooling systems for a sustainable future," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 417-425.
    9. Gong, Mei & Werner, Sven, 2015. "An assessment of district heating research in China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 97-105.
    10. Persson, U. & Möller, B. & Werner, S., 2014. "Heat Roadmap Europe: Identifying strategic heat synergy regions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 663-681.
    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. 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.
    13. Mathiesen, B.V. & Lund, H. & Connolly, D. & Wenzel, H. & Østergaard, P.A. & Möller, B. & Nielsen, S. & Ridjan, I. & Karnøe, P. & Sperling, K. & Hvelplund, F.K., 2015. "Smart Energy Systems for coherent 100% renewable energy and transport solutions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 139-154.
    14. Ommen, Torben & Thorsen, Jan Eric & Markussen, Wiebke Brix & Elmegaard, Brian, 2017. "Performance of ultra low temperature district heating systems with utility plant and booster heat pumps," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 544-555.
    15. Xiong, Weiming & Wang, Yu & Mathiesen, Brian Vad & Lund, Henrik & Zhang, Xiliang, 2015. "Heat roadmap China: New heat strategy to reduce energy consumption towards 2030," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 274-285.
    16. Brown, T. & Schlachtberger, D. & Kies, A. & Schramm, S. & Greiner, M., 2018. "Synergies of sector coupling and transmission reinforcement in a cost-optimised, highly renewable European energy system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 720-739.
    17. Wang, Hai & Wang, Haiying & Haijian, Zhou & Zhu, Tong, 2017. "Optimization modeling for smart operation of multi-source district heating with distributed variable-speed pumps," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 1247-1262.
    18. Dahl, Magnus & Brun, Adam & Andresen, Gorm B., 2017. "Using ensemble weather predictions in district heating operation and load forecasting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 455-465.
    19. Calikus, Ece & Nowaczyk, Sławomir & Sant'Anna, Anita & Gadd, Henrik & Werner, Sven, 2019. "A data-driven approach for discovering heat load patterns in district heating," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 252(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Liu, Guoqiang & Zhou, Xuan & Yan, Junwei & Yan, Gang, 2021. "A temperature and time-sharing dynamic control approach for space heating of buildings in district heating system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).

    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:eee:energy:v:107:y:2016:i:c:p:431-442. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    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.