Abstract

This paper discusses a heat pump subsystem within an existing high-temperature DH system located at a railway station in Omsk, Russia. The goal is to increase the efficiency of an existing high-temperature DH system by describing decentralized heat generation from an environmental point of view. We obtain a balance method whereby the heat loss (or the thermal energy loss) is expressed dependent on the supply and return temperatures so as to reduce operating costs of heat supply. The outcome of calculating the heat loss by this method is a relation that is valid typically for all DH networks. Findings beneath show that switching to a low-temperature DH can decrease operating costs and increase overall heat production efficiency. The reason for the latter is a known logarithmic heat flux-temperature correlation. This paper concludes that the idea of decentralized generation has a great potential for the future, as the implementation of this concept is closely related to a low-temperature DH.