Thermal energy storing and digitalization in district heating to enable transition to renewable and resource efficient energy systems

The aim of this project is to assess, control, and manage thermal storage potentials and flexibility at both building and district level to enable the complete renewable, smart, resource, and cost-efficient energy systems. Current district heating (DH) systems and existing buildings are huge free assets to store thermal energy and thereby enable bigger flexibility of the entire energy system. The flexibility can be used to make the heating system more resource efficient, and thereby economical and environmentally friendly. To scale up the proposed solutions, the project approaches will be tested on three case studies and several synthetic studies built on the real-time long-term measurements. The project concept is based on a unique smart control idea to optimize at the same time the demand side based on the variable energy prices and the supply side based on the resulting demand prediction and thereby to use renewables in resource efficient way for heating and cooling purpose. To fully utilize all possibilities for flexibility in energy systems, with the increasing deployment of electric vehicle (EV) and photovoltaic (PV) deployment in the residential sector, this project will also evaluate how EVs and PVs can be optimally coupled with DH (e.g., via heat pumps), as well as their potentials in balancing the demand and supply in both heating and electricity sector. TRAINING will provide solutions to achieve a resource-efficient and sustainable distribution, storage, and utilization of heating and cooling. It also considers the coupling of the heating sector with other sectors and thereby increasing flexibility, resource-efficiency, and climate-neutrality. Further, TRAINING will also strongly focus on utilization of digital and smart technologies in buildings and DH systems. TRAINING is a joint effort among partners from academy, research, and industry. Partners from Sweden, Germany, and Norway are involved in the project.

The aim of this project is to assess, control, and manage thermal storage potentials and flexibility at both building and district level to enable the complete renewable, smart, resource, and cost-efficient energy systems. Current district heating (DH) systems and existing buildings are huge free assets to store thermal energy and thereby enable bigger flexibility of the entire energy system. The flexibility can be used to make the heating system more resource efficient, and thereby economical and environmentally friendly. To scale up the proposed solutions, the project approaches will be tested on three case studies and several synthetic studies built on the real-time long-term measurements. The project concept is based on a unique smart control idea to optimize at the same time the demand side based on the variable energy prices and the supply side based on the resulting demand prediction and thereby to use renewables in resource efficient way for heating and cooling purpose. To fully utilize all possibilities for flexibility in energy systems, with the increasing deployment of electric vehicle (EV) and photovoltaic (PV) deployment in the residential sector, this project will also evaluate how EVs and PVs can be optimally coupled with DH (e.g., via heat pumps (HPs)), as well as their potentials in balancing the demand and supply in both heating and electricity sector.