Peak Shaving of a District Heated Office Building with Short-Term Thermal Energy Storage in Finland

Short-term thermal energy storage techniques can be effective to reduce peak power and accommodate more intermittent renewable energies in district heating systems. Centralized storage has been the most widely applied type. However, in conventional high-temperature district heating networks, substations are typically not equipped with short-term thermal energy storage. Therefore, this paper investigated its peak shaving potential. A 5 m(3) thermal storage tank directly charged by the district heating supply water was integrated into a substation of a Finnish office building. The substation with the stratified storage tank and the office building were modeled and simulated by IDA ICE. Different storage tank temperature control curves were designed to charge the tank during off-peak hours and discharge to reduce the high-peak-period heating power. Moreover, the peak power was further dimensioned by reducing the mass flow of the primary district heating supply water. The results indicate that the storage tank application significantly decreases the office building daily peak power caused by the ventilation system's morning start during the heating season. It reflected a higher peak shaving potential for colder days with 31.5% of maximum peak power decrease. Cutting the mass flow by up to 30% provides an additional peak power reduction without sacrificing thermal comfort.

Automated summary

Short-term thermal energy storage techniques can effectively reduce peak power and accommodate more intermittent renewable energies in district heating systems. This paper investigated the potential of peak shaving through the integration of a thermal storage tank into a substation of a Finnish office building.