Towards next generation zero carbon heating plants integrated with solar thermal/photovoltaic system and thermal storage

Qinglu Zeng, Zhiyong Tian, Xie Chen, Luyao Li, Ling Ma, Xinyu Chen, Yongqiang Luo, Jianhua Fan and Qian Wang

Energy, 2025, vol. 336, issue C

Abstract: The integration of renewable energy and the high-efficiency utilization of low-grade heat sources are defining characteristics of next-generation solar district heating (SDH) systems. Traditional SDH systems provide heating through a single photothermal and auxiliary heat sources such as gas boilers, which is an important reason why zero-carbon heating cannot be achieved. To achieve zero-carbon heating and study the impact of land rents on the economy of the systems, the conventional model, heat pump-coupled model, and PV-integrated model were established using the GenOpt-TRNSYS dynamic simulation and optimization platform, followed by a hybrid optimization algorithm-driven economic-technical analysis of all three models. Results demonstrated that, due to the water-to-water heat pump, the required scale of the collector field and pit was reduced by 22.3 % and 37.6 % respectively compared to the conventional model, but the heat pump-coupled model failed to achieve zero-carbon heating. In contrast, the PV-integrated model achieved zero-carbon heating through a “self-consumption with excess electricity fed into the grid” pattern, while simultaneously having the best economic and technical performance with a levelized cost of heat (LCoH) of 0.21231 ¥/kWh and a heat collection efficiency of 54.87 %. Scaling variations in equipment such as collector fields and photovoltaic arrays affect land occupation. Accordingly, a break-even analysis of land rents revealed that the PV-integrated model became economically favorable when land rents remained below 5.331¥/m2 yearly, whereas the heat pump-coupled model dominated under higher land rents. These findings provide critical theoretical guidance for system design and configuration optimization in next-generation SDH deployments.

Keywords: Solar district heating; Photovoltaic power generation; Water-to-water heat pump; Land rent; Break-even analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:336:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225041258

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.138483

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