Environmental Impact of District Heating System Retrofitting

Abstract

Retrofitting of district heating systems is a comprehensive process which covers all stages of district heating (DH) systems: production, distribution and consumption. This study quantitatively shows the effect of retrofitting measures and represents strengths and weaknesses of different development scenarios. Improvements in production units show improvements in fuel use efficiency and thus indirectly reduce CO2 emissions due to unburned fuel. For this purpose, validated district planning tools have been used. Tool uses mathematical model for calculation and evaluation of all three main components of the DH system. For the quantitative evaluation, nine efficiency and balance indicators were used. For each indicator, recommended boundary values were proposed. In total, six simulation scenarios were simulated, and the last scenario have shown significant reduction in CO2 emissions by 40% (from 3376 to 2000 t CO2 compared to the actual state), while share of biomass has reached 47%.

Keywords

• environmental impact
• district heating
• retrofitting