Effects of district heating networks on optimal energy flow of multi-carrier systems

A multi-carrier energy network is a system consists of several energy carriers such as electricity, natural gas, heat, etc. Generally, each transmission network is optimized separately but it could overshadow the actual optimal operation of the whole energy network. An integrated viewpoint opens a new window on optimization analysis. Among various networks, district heating networks are very promising for energy saving and carbon emission reduction. In this paper, effects of utilizing this network on optimization of a multi-carrier energy system are shown. However, such a problem has a considerable number of variables that makes a non-linear, non-convex, non-smooth, and high-dimension optimization problem and the optimal solution cannot be achieved by conventional mathematical techniques. Therefore, it is better to use evolutionary algorithms instead. In this paper, the well-known modified teaching-learning based optimization algorithm is used to solve the problem. Various simulations on a typical system show the impacts of a district heating network in the multi-carrier energy system. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.