Hydraulic Parameter Estimation in District Heating Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method for estimating hydraulic parameters in district heating networks using pressure measurements, including valves, to create accurate grey-box models suitable for control applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to estimate hydraulic parameters in tree-shaped systems using minimal measurements, incorporating valves into the model structure.

Findings

Accurately estimates hydraulic parameters from limited pressure data.

Includes valves in the grey-box model for better control relevance.

Demonstrates effectiveness on a small network with noisy data.

Abstract

Using hydraulic models in control design in district heating networks can increase pumping efficiency and reduce sensitivity to hydraulic bottlenecks. These models are usually white-box, as they are obtained based on full knowledge of the district heating network and its parameters. This type of model is time-consuming to obtain, and might differ from the actual behavior of the system. In this paper, a method is proposed to obtain a grey-box hydraulic model for tree-shaped district heating systems: hydraulic parameters are estimated based on pressure measurements in only two locations. While previous works only estimate parameters related to pressure losses in pipes, this work also includes customers valves in the grey-box model structure, an important inclusion for control-oriented applications. Finally, a numerical example illustrates the proposed method on a small district heating network, showing its ability to obtain an accurate model on the basis of noisy measurements.