Decentralized temperature and storage volume control in multi-producer district heating

TL;DR

This paper proposes a decentralized control scheme for multi-producer district heating systems to stabilize temperatures and manage storage, enhancing flexibility and sustainability in energy distribution.

Contribution

It introduces a novel decentralized control approach that guarantees stable temperature and storage regulation in complex, networked district heating systems with multiple producers.

Findings

Proven stability of the control scheme

Effective regulation of temperature and storage levels

Applicable to nonlinear, networked systems

Abstract

Modern district heating technologies have a great potential to make the energy sector more flexible and sustainable due to their capabilities to use energy sources of varied nature and to efficiently store energy for subsequent use. Central control tasks within these systems for the efficient and safe distribution of heat refer to the stabilization of overall system temperatures and the regulation of storage units state of charge. These are challenging goals when the networked and nonlinear nature of district heating system models is taken into consideration. In this letter, for district heating systems with multiple, distributed heat producers, we propose a decentralized control scheme to provably meet said tasks stably.