D2.4 Additional Source of Thermal and Electrical Flexibility in District Heating Substations

The main topic of this report is the activation of additional flexibility in the Hasselt demonstration site through the optimal control of the district heating substations in each residential unit. Numerical and experimental work is carried out to characterize the thermal storage tank present in each substation and gather the necessary experimental data to develop a numerical model for the thermal storage state of charge estimation. Moreover, a data-driven methodology is applied to reduce the number of sensors required for the state of charge determination of the thermal storage tank. The experimental campaign produced a large dataset spanning through various operating conditions of the storage tank. The main results showed that the current version of the numerical model should be improved to reproduce correctly the thermal storage tank behavior for different operating conditions. Concerning the state of charge determination with a reduced number of sensors, the data-driven methodology showed that it was possible to have a satisfactory state of charge determination with three sensors similar to the estimation made with nine sensors.

Publication Date: 26 Nov 2020