District Heating and Cooling Alexander Dean HVAC

Introduction
The concept of district heating and cooling provides a central solution to providing multiple buildings with necessary heating and cooling. This can be used in a wide range of applications from an apartment complex to a campus and all the way to an entire city. A central utility plant produces steam and chilled water which is sent to its process through a network of piping to area buildings. Generation is accomplished using boilers and chillers located in a central utility plant; once the demand is met the water is recirculated back to the plant in a closed loop system. Most commonly buildings will utilize forced air climate control using air handlers, the chilled water and steam are connected to coils within the unit. The advantage of district heating and cooling is the elimination of localized chillers, cooling towers, boilers and other associated systems in buildings, eliminating the space requirements of equipment, and eliminating costs associated with running heating and cooling production. Customers of will incur less costs due to simply buying their steam and chilled water off the street. This large central system provides higher efficiency due to the simultaneous production of steam and chilled water in a central plant. The emissions produced in a central plant can be much smaller than the sum of every building running independently. The heating and cooling in a building is more reliable due to a central plant operated by professionals using the best equipment and software. The topics covered above will be discussed in detail in the following pages.

District Heating
Heat generation is accomplished by using a simple system of boiler/s or more advanced cogeneration systems. The basic factor for all heat generation is the process of heating water to create hot water or steam. The use of steam is more common than hot water for a number of reasons; steam is multipurpose such that in addition providing heat it can be used for industrial processes, steam can be produced at higher temperatures and pressures resulting in more energy or enthalpy pound for pound compared to hot water and requires less energy to reach its intended process. Most commonly combustion via fossil fuels are used in the heat generation process, other sources of energy are used such as electricity, biomass, photovoltaic or nuclear. In this paper only heat generation utilizing fossil fuels will be covered. Using boilers to produce steam for heating is common practice and follows the principles of the steam cycle. Boilers used for district heating are sized to exceed the estimated peak demand. Cogeneration plants are typically sized to meet about half of the peak load; it is not economical to design a cogeneration plant to meet the entire heating load. Cogeneration plants will work with boilers dedicated to steam generation for heating to meet the heating demand. Sizes of district heating systems in use currently range from supplying entire major cities to just a dozen residential or commercial buildings. The efficiency of a typical cogeneration district heating system utilizing advanced heat recovery technology will be very high, over 80%. The process of district heating can be easily explained using the system currently in use here in Boston and Cambridge. The city is provided with steam from the street and is metered to each individual building in a manner comparable to other utilities like electricity or water. Veolia Energy currently operates the cities steam generation and distribution. Veolia produces its steam in four heat plants across the city providing steam for 240 buildings or 44 million square feet of space with a maximum capacity of 2.8 million pounds of steam per hour via a 30 mile network of underground pipes. At the individual building level the steam network from the street are connected to heat substations or commonly known as heat exchangers. The steam transfers its heat energy across the heat exchanger to the buildings central heating system, the

city steam never mixes with the buildings water. Once the buildings heating water has extracted the heat from the steam it will most commonly go to an air handler. The air handler uses coils to circulate the hot water, large fans move air across the coils thereby heating the air. The air is moved into a duct work system where it will heat the individual spaces within the building. The district steam system operates on a closed loop, the steam condensate is returned back to the heat generating plants and the process starts over. Buildings utilizing the steam from the street have will have a heat meter that measures the flow rate of the steam and the temperature differential across the heat exchanger for a preset time period. The building will be billed for the steam usage just like any other utility.

District Cooling
District cooling is the same concept as district heating except for it use to provide cooling. The concept is a centralized source of chilled water networked to multiple buildings. The cooling medium of choice is water due to its relatively cheap cost and its great ability to store energy and ease of movement. Most commonly chilled water is produce by chillers using the vapor compression cycle, the chiller uses a comparatively small amount of primary refrigerant to remove heat from a large amount of chilled water. On a large scale application the use of a primary and secondary refrigerant is the most economical way to produce cooling. The high cost of primary refrigerants such as R134a or R410a make it necessary to use a secondary refrigerant like water. The process of producing chilled water for district cooling is no different than any other typical method of cooling. The scale of operation compared to an individual building producing its own chilled water is the only difference. The size and number of chiller equipment to accomplish district cooling are immense. The chillers used for district cooling will be housed in chiller halls, or large structures used to produce chilled water. The use of cogeneration can greatly increase efficiency of chilled water production and serve multiple purposes. A fine example of a district chilled water system in operation is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus. A central utility plant produces enough chilled water to supply the 154 building campus. The chilled water is produced in the central plant, there all the necessary components of the chilled water cycle are present; the chillers used to produce chilled water, the cooling towers to remove the heat from the condenser water, the pumps needed to move the chilled water and condenser water and all the controls needed. The chilled water is pumped from the central plant into the underground piping network. The chilled water is piped from the

street into the buildings where it is then used to extract the heat and accomplish the desired cooling effect. Most commonly the cooling effect is attained using large air handlers inside each building, the chilled water moves through an evaporator coil inside the air handler. The air is pushed through the coils removing heat and then moves through a duct work system which brings cool air into the building spaces. The chilled water returns back from the building and returns back to the central utility plant where it is again cooled by the chiller starting the process over again. The system is a closed loop which reduces costs and allows insight into losses within the district cooling network.

The Advantage of Combining of District Heating and Cooling

The necessity of heating and cooling will never change, combining the concept of district heating and cooling into a combined process produces efficient sustainable solutions for large areas of residential, commercial, government buildings. The use of cogeneration not only combines utilities into a single operation, it increases efficiency, reduces costs for the utility and the consumer, decreases the impact on the environment and increases reliability. A cogeneration plant can produce steam, chilled water and electricity more efficiently than the sum of each produced individually. A centralized cogeneration plant providing a city with chilled water, steam and electricity has been proved to be advantageous. An overview look at the process of cogeneration can be broken down into each individual utility being produced. At the center of the process a gas turbine produces electricity. The waste heat from the turbine exhaust moves into a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The chillers producing chilled water can be powered using the steam and electricity produced. The different systems within the cogeneration plant work together to reduce waste and improve efficiency. There are unlimited uses for each utility within the plant that benefit each other. Cooling water can be used to cool the gas turbines combustion air, the steam produced can be used to heat fuel oil or drive pumps, the electricity produced can be used to power the plant equipment. Having a combined utility system in a city simplifies the operation. The central plant will be operated by fewer individuals who possess a greater ability to control and maintain. The cost of utility production will be decreased for the plant and the consumer. The ability to eliminate efficiencies and reduce waste will be greatly increased. Having a central utility plant increases sustainability by reducing costs and

environmental impacts, increasing efficiency and reliability. It removes the necessity for individual buildings to produce their own steam and chilled water eliminating costs and increasing usable space.