Analysis of Cooling Capability in Polish District Heating Substations

Abstract: For a district heating company it is of importance to have an efficient and well performing system. A central part in the work to lower temperature levels in district heating networks is to acknowledge and improve cooling capability in substations. The aim of this thesis is to analyse substations in Polish district heating systems in order to identify reasons of poor cooling and to present suggestions of implementable measures. Furthermore, the economical saving potential from an improved cooling is evaluated. The analysis was carried out for two of the five Polish companies included in this report; Sydkraft EC Slupsk and MEC Koszalin. It was followed by two scenarios created for evaluation of improvement possibilities based on calculated financial savings from reduction of distribution heat losses and distribution pumping. The results show that there are significant improvement possibilities. From the carried out scenarios a saving potential between 15 000 to 20 000 PLN/substation is possible to achieve for selected worst substations, if their individual annual average cooling is set to 30°C. The analysis further shows that causes of poor cooling in substations are highly individual but points out that customer owned substations are represented in the majority of worst substations.