Optimization and Multicriteria Evaluation of District Heat Production and Storage

Climate change mitigation policy requires reducing dependence on fossil fuels and transition to low carbon energy production in district heating (DH). We study here inclusion of two kinds of renewable energy to a CHP based DH system in Finland: solar heat and ground source heat. In addition, we apply heat storages to balance the gap between production and fluctuating demand. The optimal operation of the extended systems is determined by a simulation and optimization model to minimize the operating costs. We evaluate the different possible extensions in terms of multiple economic, technical and environmental criteria using Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA). The results s…