Assessment of the Optimal Energy Generation and Storage Systems to Feed a Districting Heating Network

Abstract

Employing sustainable energy systems is a must fact of the current years. Urban districts can lead the decarbonization process of cities to allow the development of decentralization energy systems such as district heating. On the other hand, the exergy analysis combined with energy evaluation can be a suitable way to investigate the efficiency and flexibility of an energy system. In this framework, this study investigates the optimal energy and storage systems to feed a district heating network. Four types of energy systems were analyzed, such as boilers, cogeneration plants, solar systems and the combination of them. The size of the thermal energy storage of the network is investigated in terms of volume and temperature. In parallel, the exergy efficiency of all the systems was calculated. The optimal heating system configuration to feed the studied district heating is the cogeneration plant with solar collectors, according to both the temperature trend fluctuation and exergy efficiency of the system. Moreover, the employment of thermal energy storage is crucial to face the renewable energy source’s variability. As a further investigation, additional exergy indicators can be studied to underline the performances of such an decentralized energy system to increase the quality of the built environment.