Work

Quantification of overlapping heating and cooling demand for the feasibility assessment of bi-directional systems over Europe

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: With warmer climate conditions, the growing need to cool down building environment in Europe calls for efficient solutions to solve the heating and cooling demand altogether. To meet such requirement, the bi-directional fifth generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) system has been proposed in recent years, while having the capability of integrating the renewable and waste energy sources. Despite the research progress on specific case studies, the application potential of this novel technology remains unclear. More specifically, although the overlapping heating and cooling demand is regarded as the key pre-requisite for 5GDHC, there is no knowledge about it in the practical European building stock. To close the gap, this study assesses the quantities and distributions of overlapping heating and cooling demand across Europe on hectare-level, via GIS-based methodologies and data sources. Considering the possible future changes to the heating and cooling demand alone brought by warmer climate, building renovations, and increased cooling area, the overlapping demand under future scenarios were investigated in this work. The demand overlap coefficient (DOC), which describes the share of overlapping demand, is combined with demand density as two criteria for identifying the potential areas of 5GDHC. The results from reference condition at year 2016 reveal that less than 0.1% of the building stock has DOC larger than 0.3, which is the threshold for 5GDHC being energy efficient. The cooling demand from commercial and industrial processes is proved as a key factor for the 5GDHC. In the future scenarios of year 2050, despite the reduction of space heating demand and increase of SC demand, the quantity of overlapping demand is only slightly changed. Thereby, even for the fast renovation scenario that has the largest overlapping demand in 2050, only around 2,500 hectare-sized units from entire Europe are found to meet the DOC limit required by the 5GDHC while having large enough demand density to support district energy systems. The potential areas for the 5GDHC under different selection rules are quantified and geographically presented.

Source: Energy and Buildings

DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2023.113244

Authors: Yichi Zhang, Pär Johansson, Angela Sasic Kalagasidis

Institution: Chalmers University of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Integrated Energy Systems Optimization

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Climate action, Affordable and clean energy, Industry, innovation and infrastructure, Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,890