Treatment and analysis of smart energy meter data from a cluster of buildings connected to district heating: A Danish case

Abstract

District heating has been found to be a key component of future and reliable smart energy grids comprising 100% of renewable energy sources for countries with dominant heating season. However, these systems face challenges that require a deeper understanding of the coupling between the distribution networks and the connected buildings, to enable demand-side management and balance the intermittence of renewables. In recent years, many smart energy meters have been installed on the heating systems of Danish dwellings connected to district heating, and the first yearly measurement data sets of large building clusters are now available. This article presents the methodology for the pre-processing and cluster analysis (K-means clustering) of a one-year-long smart energy meter measurement data from 1665 Danish dwellings connected to district heating. The aim is to identify typical household daily profiles of heat energy use, return temperature, and temperature difference between the supply and the return fluid. The study is performed with the free software environment “R”, which enables the rapid extraction of information to be shared with professionals of the building and energy sectors. After presenting the preliminary results of the clustering analysis, the article closes with the future work to be conducted on this study case.