Andreas von Recklinghausen: Die Rolle urbaner räume zur Integration fluktuierender ernuerbarer Energien - Optimierung von Strom- und Wärmeerzeugung unter Berücksichtigung einer zeitlichen Änderung des Anlagenparks, Master Thesis, TU Berlin and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 2016.
Research question
In this paragraph the motivation is presented for the implementation of individual heating systems in the energy system model Balmorel and an exemplary research questions, that could be answered by this exercise.
These considerations were part of the employment as research associate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) as well as of a master thesis at the TU Berlin (department of Prof. Tsatsaronis). The title of this master thesis is "The Role of Urban Areas for the Integration of Fluctuating Renewable Energies - Optimizing Power and Heat Generation Accounting for Investment Cycles". By this some core aspects of the work are already named.
As stated in Münster et al. (2012, Page 2) the following trends for the overall heating system presumably are of main relevance:
• large scale coal-fired power plants may gradually be converted to biomass or decommissioned and replaced by new biomass power plants or large-scale heat pumps
• the latter utilizing wind power
• decoupling of heat and power supply by thermal storages and by this an increased possibility to react on the feed-in of fluctuating renewable energy sources
• overall lower heating needs due to increased insulation and construction of new houses with a very low area-specific heat demand
New aspects, which are also of relevance:
• increasing competition between individual heating (IH) and district heating (DH) on the one hand due to lower heat demand per section DH pipeline, on the other hand due to efficient and affordable IH technologies (e.g. small heat pumps and 𝜇CHPs, both eventually in combination with heat storage and solar thermal collector)
• the possibility of individual heating systems to provide system services by intelligent control mechanisms (e.g. virtual power plants, Demand-Side Management or embedded de-central control)
Taking this as given environment, the economic potential (cf. Sathaye et al. (2001)) is explored of new supply technologies (electricity and heat) to integrate fluctuating RES. This should be done over a multi-year optimization horizon, taking into account the existing supply structure, decommissioning thereof, as well as the development of electricity and heat demand. By doing this, the crucial aspect of path dependencies due to differing investment dates can be considered.
