Highly Renewable District Heat for Espoo Utilizing Waste Heat Sources

Pauli Hiltunen and Sanna Syri
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Pauli Hiltunen: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 14100, FIN-00076 Aalto, Finland
Sanna Syri: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 14100, FIN-00076 Aalto, Finland

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-21

Abstract: The district heating operator Fortum and the city of Espoo have set a goal to abandon the use of coal in district heating production and increase the share of renewable sources to 95% by the year 2029. Among renewable fuels and heat pumps, waste heat utilization has an important role in Fortum’s plans for the decarbonization of district heating production, and Fortum is considering the possibility of utilizing waste heat from a large data center in its district heating network. The goal of this paper is to investigate the feasibility and required amount of waste heat to achieve this goal. Two different operation strategies are introduced—an operation strategy based on marginal costs and an operation strategy prioritizing waste heat utilization. Each strategy is modeled with three different electricity price scenarios. Because the low temperature waste heat from a data center must be primed by heat pumps, the electricity price has a significant impact on the feasibility of waste heat utilization. Prioritizing waste heat utilization leads to higher production costs, but a lower waste heat capacity is needed to reach the goal of 95% renewables in production. The higher electricity price emphasizes the differences between the two operation strategies. Waste heat utilization also leads to significant reductions of CO 2 emissions.

Keywords: decarbonization transition; energy system modeling; data center; open district heating network; heat pump; renewable energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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