An Innovative Control Framework for District Heating Systems: Conceptualisation and Preliminary Results

This paper presents a holistic innovative solution for the transformation of the current district heating and cooling systems to automated more efficient systems. A variety of technological advancements have been developed and integrated to support the effective energy management of future district heating and cooling sector. First, we identify and discuss the main challenges and needs that are in line with the EU objectives and policy expectations. We give an overview of the main parts that our solution consists of, with emphasis on the forecasting tools and an advanced control system that addresses unit commitment and economic load dispatch problems. The proposed control approach employs distributed and scalable optimisation algorithms for optimising the short-term operations of a district heating and cooling plant subject to technical constraints and uncertainties in the energy demand. To test the performance and validate the proposed control system, a district heating plant with multiple energy generation units and real-life heat load data were used. Simulation experiments were also used to evaluate the benefits of using thermal storage units in district heating systems. The results show that the proposed method could achieve significant cost savings when energy storage is employed. The proposed control strategy can be applied for both operating optimally district heating plants with storage and supporting investment planning for new storage units

Dynamic modelling and control of district heating and cooling systems

District heating and cooling systems (DHCSs) provide thermal energy to a wide range of users. The efficient performance of DHCSs is critical for the reliability of the generation, supply and consumption of energy processes. Moreover, improvement of the energy management within DHCSs helps to tackle the greenhouse gas emission issue. Therefore, accurate models to analyse the thermal and hydraulic behaviours presented in a DHCS become essential to enhance the energy efficiency of heating and cooling processes. A substantial number of studies rely on steady-state models, in which the transient responses and their influence on the whole system are often ignored. The results and conclusions derived from these studies are based on assumptions that neglect critical dynamics under changes of operating conditions. Moreover, some studies only consider the energy dispatch ignoring how energy is transported, transferred and consumed. Thus, the fundamental variables that describe the behaviour of DHCS have not been considered in detail