A theoretical benchmark for bypass controllers in a residential district heating network

Annelies Vandermeulen, Bram van der Heijde, Dieter Patteeuw, Dirk Vanhoudt and Lieve Helsen

Energy, 2018, vol. 151, issue C, 45-53

Abstract: Bypass valves in district heating substations are a compromise between efficiency and quality of service. On the one hand, they are required to ensure that each building (no matter the distance to the heat source) has warm water within an acceptable time. On the other hand, they form a short-circuit between the warm supply and cold return line and their use can increase the return temperature substantially. Therefore, a good control of these bypass valves is critical to limit the drawback of their use. In this context, this paper compares two commonly used control strategies (manual control and thermostat control) to a new theoretical benchmark that provides an upper boundary for the performance of bypass controllers. This theoretical benchmark ensures a just-in-time delivery of warm water by taking into account time delays in the network. In a simulation case study of a small neighbourhood in Genk, Belgium, the benchmark shows that substantial improvement regarding bypass control is possible.

Keywords: District heating; Thermal networks; Control; Time delays; Bypass valves (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218303906
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:151:y:2018:i:c:p:45-53

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.02.156

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().