Optimizing Thermal Energy Sharing in Smart District Heating Networks

Anna Dattilo, Francesco Melino (), Mattia Ricci and Paolo Sdringola
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Anna Dattilo: Department of Industrial Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum—Università di Bologna, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Francesco Melino: Department of Industrial Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum—Università di Bologna, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Mattia Ricci: Energy Efficiency Department, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Research Center Casaccia, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Rome, Italy
Paolo Sdringola: Energy Efficiency Department, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Research Center Casaccia, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Rome, Italy

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-18

Abstract: The constant attention to sustainability aimed at reconciling economic and social development with environmental protection is the driving force of the continuous growth of renewable energy in the energy sector. Among the numerous actions taken by the European Commission (EC) in this direction, an important initiative towards the complete decarbonization is represented by the Renewable Energy Communities (RECs). According to the EC, “energy communities enable collective and citizen-driven energy actions to support the clean energy transition. They can contribute to increasing public acceptance of renewable energy projects and make it easier to attract private investments in the clean energy transition”. At the European level, numerous energy communities are emerging, although they are all based on photovoltaic production and, consequently, focus only on electricity flows. The aim of this paper is to define a thermal energy community in which thermal energy sharing can be achieved by exploiting the concept of the smart district heating network. Starting from a small existing district heating network, its conversion into a smart one will be analyzed and optimized with the aim of studying the sharing of thermal energy between the various prosumer and non-prosumer users connected to the district heating network.

Keywords: thermal energy community; smart district heating; shared energy; allocation algorithms (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: 2024
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