RT journal article
T1 Energy performance of decentralized solar thermal feed-in to district heating networks
A1 Monsalvete Álvarez de Uribarri, María Del Pilar
A1 Eicker, U.
A1 Robinson, Darren
A2 Máquinas y Motores Térmicos
K1 District heating
K1 Distributed solar generation
K1 Solar thermal
K1 Prosumer
K1 Excess heat
AB Many papers have been written over the last years addressing the potential of decentralized solar thermal systems in District Heating Networks (DHN), assuming that the network can be used as a virtual storage so that prosumers can release excess solar energy into the network and use it later when it is needed.When looking at the district heating systems in detail, many questions still remain unanswered. Is it possible to feed in all the surplus solar energy into the net? How does the solar input affect the network and the other prosumers? Is it sensible from the energy balance perspective? We have studied an existing DHN in an attempt to answer these questions.A simulation model of the DHN in the Southern German city quarter Ludwigsburg-Sonnenberg was developed and extended to include decentralized feed-in of heat from solar thermal collectors to evaluate their potential contribution to network demands. It could be shown that prosumers supply during summer period significantly more heat than they demand, so that the thermal network could operate as an autonomous micro-grid.By comparing the amount of electrical pumping energy that is needed to feed heat to the DHN with usable solar thermal energy, the benefit ratio of feeding heat into the DHN can be quantified.
PB Elsevier
SN 1876-6102
YR 2017
FD 2017
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/36988
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/36988
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 09-nov-2026