Heating and cooling of buildings accounts for a large share of the energy consumption. Primarily, this is energy is provided by fossil fuels. Improving the fabric of a building to reduce heat demands should always be the first consideration. However, even well-insulated new-builds have a remaining demand for heating. Even more so on existing buildings where improving building fabric of our complete building stock is slow and capital intensive. We have to conclude that a significant heat demand will remain in our society of tomorrow.
One of the most cost-effective solutions to accelerate the decarbonisation of heating in urban areas is the development of heat networks. But how do you design a district heating network, how do you connect a house to it and how do you achieve optimal energy and carbon performance? With our engineering software the hydraulic optimization of a district heating network is a piece of cake.
The Hysopt software has several specific features to help you design and simulate district heating networks.
Extensive library
Heat exchangers, substations, HIU’s, hybrid heat production and fully pre-programmed concepts are an integral part of the Hysopt software. This enables you to predict the effects of a district heating network hydraulic optimisation in an instant.
Custom development
Designing and simulating district heating networks isn’t always simple. We will happily help you use our software to design and simulate district heating networks for complex projects.
Draw on floor plans
You can download street maps or floor plans straight from Google Maps via the software, which means you can automatically take pipe lengths into account when designing your district heating networks.
Analyse different scenarios
Would you like to quickly find out how your district heating network would perform before it gets build or why you are experiencing poor performance on an existing network? You can! We can simulate different scenarios so you know immediately how they would affect your energy and carbon performance.
Include measurement data
If you want to connect a building to a district heating network and you have data that describes the performance of your existing installation, we can read this data in to include it in our simulations. To improve the design of new heat networks even further, you can use consumption data from similar buildings which makes you have to rely less on outdated benchmarks.
Load duration curves
We can use our load duration curves to perfectly map out how much heating we need and how we will provide it.
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A district heating network is a network of underground pipes, connected to a central heat source, along which hot water is distributed. Within certain limits, the heat network is agnostic in the adoption of different heat sources and this can evolve over the years. It could be waste heat from industry, a power station or agricultural company that produces lots of surplus heat, a solar thermal installation, or heat can be extracted from the earth (geothermal energy). Once the heat source has heated the water, it is distributed to the buildings via underground pipes. Homes, office and industrial buildings, apartments, schools, hospitals and even whole cities can all be connected to a district heating network for both heating and domestic hot water.
Sustainable heat source
Heat networks offer a solution to utilise waste heat streams and renewable heat sources which could otherwise not be applied on an individual level. Economy of scale can also make many of these technologies cost-effective. And because heat networks are relatively agnostic to the type of heat source, it offers the potential to adopt new technologies in the future. This possibilities help us accelerating the decarbonisation challenges.
Individual gas boilers become redundant
Customers don’t need to buy and maintain their own boiler which can save them money and space and takes away a burden.
Higher yield
Heat networks offer higher production efficiencies compared to individual heating systems and make it possible to re-use waste heat, which makes heating more affordable for end users and tackles fuel poverty.
There is clearly a massive decarbonisation potential in the development district heating but unfortunately this potential is not always unlocked when they come to fruition. Anyone who wants to develop a heat network or connect a building to a heat network should aim for maximum energy and carbon performance. The Hysopt software offers a solution for the hydraulic optimisation of heat networks and secures district heating investments.
69% of the projects where we’ve hydraulically optimised district heating networks have had a payback period of less than two years.. Furthermore, energy savings have increased from 20% to 70%.
Do you have any other questions or would you like to find out what we can do for you? Send us a message and we will contact you as soon as possible.