Analyzing Intersectoral Benefits of District Heating in an Integrated Generation and Transmission Expansion Planning Model

In the field of sector integration, the expansion of district heating (DH) is traditionally discussed with regard to the efficient integration of renewable energy sources (RES) and excess heat. But does DH exclusively benefit from other sectors or does it offer advantages in return? So far, studies have investigated DH only as a closed system or determined intersectoral benefits in a highly aggregated approach. We use and expand an integrated generation and transmission expansion planning model to analyze how the flexibility of DH benefits the energy system and the power transmission grid in particular. First of all, the results confirm former investigations that show DH can be used for efficient RES integration. Total annual system cost can be decreased by expanding DH, due to low investment cost and added flexibility, especially from large-scale heat storage. The high short-term efficiency of heat storage-in combination with electric heating technologies-can be exploited to shift heat demand temporally and, using multiple distributed units, locally to solve electric grid congestion. Although it is unclear whether these results can be replicated in the real world, due to the aggregation and detail of the model, further research in this direction is justified.

Automated summary

The expansion of district heating can lower the total system cost and provide benefits in multiple sectors, especially through the flexibility obtained from large-scale heat storage.