An engineering approach to the optimal design of distributed energy systems in China

China faces enormous challenges as it strives to meet its increasing energy demands. Distributed energy systems (DESs) provide a good opportunity to tackle these challenges by integrating various forms of distributed technologies, of which internal combustion engines, solar photovoltaic, and absorption chillers being the typical ones. However, fluctuation in energy demands and supplies, the large number of available distributed technologies and various possible combinations of these technologies make the design of DES a formidable task. The potential benefits of DES might be hampered by their impropriate design and operation. This paper provides a generic energy systems engineering framework toward the optimal design of DES in China, with the purpose of obtaining optimal combination of technologies and capacity of equipment for a given area with given energy demands. A hotel in Beijing is selected as an illustrative example to demonstrate the key steps and features of the proposed approach. Results show that the optimal configuration of such a DES is a rather complex system equipped with various technologies. It is more efficient and economic than conventional centralized energy systems as well as distributed combined cooling, heating and power systems. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.