New project TeoS
The district heating network of the future
- 20.06.2023
Our district heating network resembles a picture book. A picture that is now getting even more detail, because this network is to operate largely without fossil fuels in the future. The task is to develop an ingenious, efficient system, to lower the flow temperatures and to build emission-free generation capacities. Always with the proviso that even the last connection receives the contractually guaranteed output. This requires highly complex calculations and engineering skills. It is precisely this expertise that the new TeoS* project brings together - under the leadership of the UDE.
Together with the district heating network operator BTB in Berlin and Fernwärme Duisburg GmbH, the UDE Chair of Energy Technology is researching how such a network can be supplied in the most climate-friendly way possible. To this end, the existing networks in Duisburg and Berlin are being modelled and supplemented with potential renewable energy sources (RE) - such as heat pumps, geothermal energy, solar thermal energy.
"Our chair has been working on complex models of heat grids and energy production for several years - nevertheless, TeoS with the large amounts of data from Duisburg and Berlin is a new challenge for us. We will need several months to link the numerous scenarios with the grid calculation and the simulation of the generation side," explains project coordinator Dr Jürgen Roes. The locations are analysed in terms of geodata, urban conditions and usable industrial waste heat. Weather conditions and price trends also play a role in subprojects.
New plants may well have to be built, and hydraulic modifications may also be necessary to ensure an uninterrupted supply. The UDE team is looking at low-emission plants such as large-scale heat pumps that draw heat from rivers like the Rhine, or deep geothermal energy, which it is currently investigating in another project for Düsseldorf and Duisburg.
The goal of all this is a tool that simulates a future grid in detail, identifies critical points and takes different generation cases into account. The different framework conditions should also show how as much CO2 as possible can be saved. "This is the only way to plan the district heating network of the future in a demand-oriented and resilient way," Roes emphasises.
* TeoS stands for: Technology Open Energy System Analysis to derive action measures for the decarbonisation of urban heating networks. The project, which will initially last two years, is being funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection with around 800,000 euros, of which just under 500,000 euros will go to the UDE's Chair of Energy Technology.
In the picture: Combined heat and power plant III of Stadtwerke Duisburg.
Further information:
Dr. Jürgen Roes, Energy Technology, Tel. 0203/37 9-3010, juergen.roes@uni-due.de
Christian Thommessen, Energy Technology, Tel. 0203/37 9-2745, christian.thommessen@uni-due.de