This paper presents a digital twin for the district heating prosumer laboratory at the Center for Combined Smart Energy Systems (CoSES) consisting of heat generators, thermal storages and heat consumption. It is developed using a newly created, Modelica-based simulation library named CoSES ProHMo. Existing simulation models often fail to accurately represent the behavior of commercial hardware components. Therefore, the digital twin features new, accurate heat generator models and tuned models for thermal storage units and heat consumption. The component models are parametrized using measurements from the CoSES laboratory. It can be exported and used in other programs via the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI). This allows the digital twin to be used platformindependently to design control strategies for realistic heating systems. If desired, the control strategies can be ported to an embedded controller and further tested in the CoSES laboratory. A case study with multiple heat generators, thermal storages and a heat sink was designed to demonstrate the utility of the library. The analysis of the results shows previously unanticipated interactions between different heat generators and the internal controllers of commercial hardware. Based on these findings, the proposed digital twin library can be used by the research community to create realistic scenarios for testing novel control strategies for heating systems and prosumers in district heating grids.
Prosumer-dominated thermal networks interconnect distributed prosumers. These networks form the infrastructure that allows to execute the trading of thermal energy as desired in the context of local energy markets. However, the significantly different behavior of such networks compared to conventional district heating and cooling networks has not yet been comprehensively investigated. This paper provides a compilation of instrinsic characteristics of prosumer-dominated thermal networks and discusses challenges that arise from these characteristics. As a basis for the investigations an underlying reference concept for the considered type of networks is described. Simulative case studies are combined with scientific deduction and literature references to gain new insights on the design and operation of this type of networks. It is found that due to the variability in these networks, the definition of a design case is a challenge for the dimensioning of concrete network implementations. To anticipate the strong coupling between prosumers and the nonlinear network behavior, it is concluded that centralized control combined with a model of the physical network behavior is necessary. The discussion of characteristics and challenges in prosumer-dominated thermal networks indicates open points in this field and thus provides a starting point for consecutive studies.
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