Implications of supplying district heat to a new urban residential area in Sweden

Abstract Here we analyze the cost, primary energy and CO2 implications of supplying district heat, considering different supply and return temperatures, to a new residential area in Vaxjo, Sweden. We explore four land exploitation alternatives consisting different types of buildings with various heated floor areas as well as occupancy densities and two levels of building energy efficiency, based on the Swedish building code and passive house criteria. The analysis shows that energy performance of the buildings and land exploitation alternatives strongly influence the annual heat demand and its profile, which steers the design of the local heat distribution network. Additionally, supply and return temperatures of district heat somewhat influence the design of the network. The distribution heat losses could be reduced by 25% and 50% if district heating systems of 65/30 °C and 50/20 °C, respectively, are used instead of a conventional 80/40 °C system. However, for the same land exploitation alternative, the local distribution heat losses are about the same whether or not the buildings are designed to meet the Swedish building code or passive house criteria, since the same pipe distance is required and the variation of pipe diameters is small. A 50/20 °C system increases electricity use to boost hot water temperature to avoid the risk of legionella bacteria, and this influences quantity of district heat supply, primary energy use and costs. Therefore, a 65/30 °C system appears to be more primary energy and cost efficient than a 50/20 °C system. Increased insulation of district heating network reduces heat losses but this is not cost effective due to increased investment cost. The results are similar whether or not the analysis is based on current energy supply or future renewable based energy supply. This study increases understanding of strategies for planning and designing new urban residential areas and their energy supply systems to reduce primary energy use as well as monetary costs, and to minimize the climate impacts of the built environment.