The Role of Low Temperature Waste Heat Recovery in Achieving 2050 Goals: A Policy Positioning Paper

Wheatcroft, Edward; Wynn, Henry P.; Lygnerud, Kristina; Bonvicini, Giorgio; Leonte, Daniela

doi:10.3390/en13082107

Cited by 40 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…A district heating network design and simulation code was also developed to incorporate the network optimization procedure. Wheatcroft, E. et al have investigated the impact of low-temperature waste heat use to achieve the 2050 goals for decarbonization [31]. They have reminded that heat from data centers, metro systems, public sector buildings, and wastewater treatment plants may be recovered to satisfy 10% of the overall heat demand in the EU countries.…”

Section: Low-temperature District Energy Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Benefits of Heat Pipe Technology for Achieving 100% Renewable Heating and Cooling for Fifth-Generation, Low-Temperature District Heating Systems

Kılkış

Çağlar²,

Sengul³

2021

Energies

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This paper addresses the challenges the policymakers face concerning the EU decarbonization and total electrification roadmaps towards the Paris Agreement set forth to solve the global warming problem within the framework of a 100% renewable heating and cooling target. A new holistic model was developed based on the Rational Exergy Management Model (REMM). This model optimally solves the energy and exergy conflicts between the benefits of using widely available, low-temperature, low-exergy waste and renewable energy sources, like solar energy, and the inability of existing heating equipment, which requires higher exergy to cope with such low temperatures. In recognition of the challenges of retrofitting existing buildings in the EU stock, most of which are more than fifty years old, this study has developed a multi-pronged solution set. The first prong is the development of heating and cooling equipment with heat pipes that may be customized for supply temperatures as low as 35 °C in heating and as high as 17 °C in cooling, by which equipment oversizing is kept minimal, compared to standard equipment like conventional radiators or fan coils. It is shown that circulating pump capacity requirements are also minimized, leading to an overall reduction of CO2 emissions responsibility in terms of both direct, avoidable, and embodied terms. In this respect, a new heat pipe radiator prototype is presented, performance analyses are given, and the results are compared with a standard radiator. Comparative results show that such a new heat pipe radiator may be less than half of the weight of the conventional radiator, which needs to be oversized three times more to operate at 35 °C below the rated capacity. The application of heat pipes in renewable energy systems with the highest energy efficiency and exergy rationality establishes the second prong of the paper. A next-generation solar photo-voltaic-thermal (PVT) panel design is aimed to maximize the solar exergy utilization and minimize the exergy destruction taking place between the heating equipment. This solar panel design has an optimum power to heat ratio at low temperatures, perfectly fitting the heat pipe radiator demand. This design eliminates the onboard circulation pump, includes a phase-changing material (PCM) layer and thermoelectric generator (TEG) units for additional power generation, all sandwiched in a single panel. As a third prong, the paper introduces an optimum district sizing algorithm for minimum CO2 emissions responsibility for low-temperature heating systems by minimizing the exergy destructions. A solar prosumer house example is given addressing the three prongs with a heat pipe radiator system, next-generation solar PVT panels on the roof, and heat piped on-site thermal energy storage (TES). Results showed that total CO2 emissions responsibility is reduced by 96.8%. The results are discussed, aiming at recommendations, especially directed to policymakers, to satisfy the Paris Agreement.

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Section: Low-temperature District Energy Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Benefits of Heat Pipe Technology for Achieving 100% Renewable Heating and Cooling for Fifth-Generation, Low-Temperature District Heating Systems

Kılkış

Çağlar²,

Sengul³

2021

Energies

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“…District heating is seen as one of the most promising alternatives for residual heat recycling. The DCs’ waste heat has the potential of replacing natural gas-based heat, bringing considerable cost savings and a lower carbon footprint to local communities [ 19 , 23 ].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The heat reuse policy and infrastructure are well established in Nordic European countries [6,9,10], thus the DC potential for heat reuse is usually analyzed considering this use case. The efficient heat reuse will provide new revenue streams for DCs but at the same time, several research challenges still need to be faced such as the low-grade waste heat generated by the servers, especially in the case of the air-cooled DCs and the high investment costs [1,19]. These investments usually address the deployment and installation of heat pumps that are used for raising the quality of the heat [20][21][22].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heating Homes with Servers: Workload Scheduling for Heat Reuse in Distributed Data Centers

Antal

Cristea²,

Pădurean

et al. 2021

Sensors

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Data centers consume lots of energy to execute their computational workload and generate heat that is mostly wasted. In this paper, we address this problem by considering heat reuse in the case of a distributed data center that features IT equipment (i.e., servers) installed in residential homes to be used as a primary source of heat. We propose a workload scheduling solution for distributed data centers based on a constraint satisfaction model to optimally allocate workload on servers to reach and maintain the desired home temperature setpoint by reusing residual heat. We have defined two models to correlate the heat demand with the amount of workload to be executed by the servers: a mathematical model derived from thermodynamic laws calibrated with monitored data and a machine learning model able to predict the amount of workload to be executed by a server to reach a desired ambient temperature setpoint. The proposed solution was validated using the monitored data of an operational distributed data center. The server heat and power demand mathematical model achieve a correlation accuracy of 11.98% while in the case of machine learning models, the best correlation accuracy of 4.74% is obtained for a Gradient Boosting Regressor algorithm. Also, our solution manages to distribute the workload so that the temperature setpoint is met in a reasonable time, while the server power demand is accurately following the heat demand.

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“…According to H2020 Hotmaps project assessments on the EU28 building stock [3], and considering the current policy scenario regarding legislation and renovation rates, the 2050 outlook foresees a reduction of the space-heating demand by about 39% and a space-cooling demand three times higher than 2012 values. In Europe, the district heating market share stands at about 12-13% [4,5], whereas, for district cooling, the same value is about 2% [6]. Without any measures being implemented, the current district heating and cooling (DHC) business will be affected by the variation of buildings' thermal energy demands in the coming decades due to various energy efficiency programs [7].…”

Section: Decarbonising the Building Sector With 5gdhc Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional ongoing projects that highlight the effort of the EU in boosting the DHC sector are: ReUseHeat [15], TEMPO [16], WEDISTRICT [17], RELaTED [18], Upgrade DH [19], COOL DH [20], KeepWarm [21], THERMOS [22], HeatNet NWE [23], and ENTRAIN [24]. Some relevant aspects of urban excess heat recovery have been reported in a recent position paper from the ReUseHeat project [5]. Here, the authors highlighted that recovering and reusing the low-temperature urban excess heat available in Europe, estimated at 1.2 EJ/year and equivalent to 16% of the heating demand of all buildings in the EU, could be cheaper than using high-temperature heat sources for two reasons: economical heat recovery solutions could be employed, whereas transmission networks are not needed anymore, because low-temperature urban excess heat sources are close to the heat demand.…”

Section: Recent Publications About 5gdhc Systems and Urban Excess Heat Recoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fifth-Generation District Heating and Cooling Substations: Demand Response with Artificial Neural Network-Based Model Predictive Control

et al. 2020

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District heating and cooling (DHC) is considered one of the most sustainable technologies to meet the heating and cooling demands of buildings in urban areas. The fifth-generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) concept, often referred to as ambient loops, is a novel solution emerging in Europe and has become a widely discussed topic in current energy system research. 5GDHC systems operate at a temperature close to the ground and include electrically driven heat pumps and associated thermal energy storage in a building-sited energy transfer station (ETS) to satisfy user comfort. This work presents new strategies for improving the operation of these energy transfer stations by means of a model predictive control (MPC) method based on recurrent artificial neural networks. The results show that, under simple time-of-use utility rates, the advanced controller outperforms a rule-based controller for smart charging of the domestic hot water (DHW) thermal energy storage under specific boundary conditions. By exploiting the available thermal energy storage capacity, the MPC controller is capable of shifting up to 14% of the electricity consumption of the ETS from on-peak to off-peak hours. Therefore, the advanced control implemented in 5GDHC networks promotes coupling between the thermal and the electric sector, producing flexibility on the electric grid.

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The Role of Low Temperature Waste Heat Recovery in Achieving 2050 Goals: A Policy Positioning Paper

Cited by 40 publications

References 25 publications

Energy Benefits of Heat Pipe Technology for Achieving 100% Renewable Heating and Cooling for Fifth-Generation, Low-Temperature District Heating Systems

Energy Benefits of Heat Pipe Technology for Achieving 100% Renewable Heating and Cooling for Fifth-Generation, Low-Temperature District Heating Systems

Heating Homes with Servers: Workload Scheduling for Heat Reuse in Distributed Data Centers

Fifth-Generation District Heating and Cooling Substations: Demand Response with Artificial Neural Network-Based Model Predictive Control

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