Fourth-Generation District Heating and Motivation Tariffs

Abstract

Future district heating systems and technologies—also known as fourth-generation district heating—have a potentially important role to play in the green transition of societies. The implementation of fourth-generation district heating involves adjustments in the demand side to allow for low temperature supply. In order to facilitate such changes, district heating supply companies have in recent years introduced tariffs with penalties for high return temperatures and benefits for low return temperatures. This paper describes the case of a housing community of 17 buildings in their attempts to adjust to such tariffs as an integrated part of connecting to district heating. Replacing domestic hot water tanks with instantaneous heat exchangers and introducing smart meters resulted in abilities to lower the return temperature from around 40 °C to around 30 °C. However, the current design of the motivation tariffs does not yet fully compensate the consumers because the supply company provides unnecessarily high supply temperatures. Based on such efforts, this paper discusses the fairness and effectiveness of the tariffs and provides recommendations for improving them.

Development and Test: Future-Proof Substation Designs for the Low-Temperature Operation of Domestic Hot Water Systems with a Circulation Loop

“…The DH motivation tariff is commonly integrated into the Danish pricing structure, offering bonuses in the energy billing of end users based on the reduction in the DH return temperature from a specified reference level. This approach engages end users and encourages them to operate their heating systems optimally in exchange for discounts on heating bills [31,32]. Within the Viborg local heating network, the local motivation tariff ensured a 1% reward for each degree of temperature reduction.…”

Leakages in District Heating Networks—Model-Based Data Set Quality Assessment and Localization

“…The energy transition can only succeed if the change to renewable energies is also pursued for the supply of heat. District heating networks (DHNs) have a potentially important role for the green transition [ 1 ]. During the whole year, DHNs are used to supply customers with energy.…”

Evaluation and Optimization of heat Pump Combined District Heating System: A Case Study of China

“…Averfalk et al [11] compared heat supply costs for a set of different heat supply sources at two predetermined temperature levels and the results indicated that with decreasing distribution temperatures, the required installing capacity of HPs was reduced, and HPs were able to cover more of the total heat load. Lund et al [12] discussed fairness and effectiveness of the tariffs introduced by district heating supply companies with penalties for high return temperatures and benefits for low return temperatures, and some recommendations are given to improve the tariffs. Li et al [13] studied possibilities, bottlenecks and challenges of the transition process to the 4th GDH, and the potential of HPs in application of lowlevel heat sources, supply of domestic hot water and space heating was illustrated.…”