Lower forward temperature in district heating

Deadline: 11 February 2019, 12:00 noon CET

Aim of the Open Innovation Call

The challenges in this Open Innovation Call target how the district heating companies can achieve a lower forward temperature without affecting the end user negatively, thus avoiding an increase of the amount of complaints. A key aspect is to find incentives for the end user to comply with a lower forward temperature. It should preferably be a win-win situation.

OUTCOMES OF THE OPEN INNOVATION CALL

Background

Smart Cities Accelerator (SCA) is a project-based partnership consisting of leading universities, companies and cities in southern Sweden and Denmark, co-funded by EU’s Interreg scheme. The aims of the project are to develop smart cities and sustainable solutions for intelligent use of energy.

In SCA, and beyond, we aim to optimise the district heating forward temperature, i.e. reducing the temperature based on load forecast and feedback from the grid. A lower forward temperature results in economic gains and increased energy efficiency. However, as the temperature decreases, customers with malfunctioning substations or substations with dimensioning problems might not get a high enough temperature for their household. There are two possibilities to minimize the amount of com-plains: either the grid temperature is adjusted based on the critical costumers’ limits or the temperature is adjusted based on the general temperature limits in most of the substations with the requirement of an identification of malfunctioning substations and that these are fixed. The last alternative is of course preferable.

The paradox is that “all” the technical solutions to lower the temperature assuring a high enough temperature for most of the end users do exist today, but not how to deal with critical costumers. Thereto, the district heating companies do not own the substations, preventing necessary actions to be performed. One possibility would be to provide the remedial actions for free. However, this might send out the signal that costumers with poorly maintained substations are “rewarded” with a free service, therefore probably not a viable solution. With this said, how should the district heating companies reach out to the costumers, creating incentives to reduce the risk of malfunctioning substations?

Description of the call

The aim of this call for innovation is to make the district heating companies able to take advantage of the technical solutions that enable a reduced forward temperature. This will create big economic and sustainable advantages for many stakeholders, including the society. It seems that the amount of what we could call “unsatisfied customers” are only a minor part of the total end users, thus obliging the district companies to rethink or restore a higher forward temperature to satisfy these customers on behalf of the “well-functioning” majority.

Thus, how do we create a win-win situation that favours all the end users and the district heating companies? Below are some questions that could inspire ways to move forward for solutions for a lower forward temperature:

• How can we identify errors in substations at an early stage, before comfort problems arise, minimizing the amount of complaints?
• When the malfunctioning substations are identified, how do we analyse their performance?
• Once the malfunctioning substations are identified and analysed, how do we deal with them? (Are we merely talking technical solutions and/or repair/maintenance, or are there other considerations and solutions that can come into play, such as better incentives for the end user to prioritize proper maintenance etc.?)
• How do we assure lowest possible supply temperature, while still assuring customer satisfaction?
• Are the existing incentives for a lower forward temperature present today and are they known for the right stakeholders?
• What incentives are not present today that could help the end users adapt to a lower forward temperature?

This Open Innovation Call is therefore asking for innovative ways to guarantee satisfied customers, while reducing the forward temperature.

The Challenge

The aim of the Smart Cities Accelerator-project is to optimize (i.e. reduce) the supply temperature in the District Heating-grid (DH). To be able to do this as a continuous process, the DH-companies need a way to identify, analyse and fix malfunctioning substations/-systems. This might be done by technical and/or strategical solutions. For example, technical solutions may be implemented to identify and analyse malfunctioning or under-dimensioned substations, whilst strategic solutions may help to create incentives for customers to adjust or fix their substations. Another question is when the DH-companies are responsible for taking the correct remedial measures and when the customers are. For example, a substation/-system might be under-dimensioned today due to the conditions in the grid at the time it was installed. The DH-company might be responsible to fix these specific under-dimensioning cases.

For both Lund, Sweden, and Høje-Taastrup, Denmark, the towns are quite “heterogenous” with a mix of old and new, big and small buildings throughout the grid. This means that a new-built office might be located next to old multifamily-houses and a recently renovated school. All these customer types need to get the temperature they require. In most cases and during a large part of the year, the sub-stations work perfectly fine with a temperature well below what they receive today. However, the functionality in the substations vary, which might lead to that certain substations don’t work properly when receiving a lower supply temperature.

Furthermore, the district heating company Kraftringen (in Sweden) has different taxes for different customers where for example business customers pay for the flow of DH-water as well as for the used energy. This creates incentives to ensure a good cooling and well-functioning substations for these customer types. However, private household owners lack such flow tariff, reducing the incentives to secure a well-functioning substation. It should be mentioned that introducing a flow tariff is only one of many possible incentives that could be implemented. In Denmark, though, the district heating company Høje-Taastrup Fjernvarme does not have different taxes, but both big and small costumers pay for what they use in MWh. Furthermore, they pay extra for having too high return temperature. This could be an incentive for the end users to optimizing their substations, as end users with low return temperature receive a bonus.