Method development for lowering supply temperatures in existing buildings using minimal building information and demand measurement data

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to estimate the minimal necessary heating supply temperatures in existing buildings using limited data, aiming to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Contribution

The method enables estimation of optimal supply temperatures with minimal building data, facilitating widespread application without detailed physical models.

Findings

Potential for significant temperature reductions identified

Method successfully applied to multiple buildings

Implemented heatcurve improved energy efficiency in a real building

Abstract

Regarding climate change, the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is well-known. As building heating contributes to a high share of total energy consumption, which relies mainly on fossil energy sources, improving heating efficiency is promising to consider. Lowering supply temperatures of the heating systems in buildings offers a huge potential for efficiency improvements since different heat supply technologies, such as heat pumps or district heating, benefit from low supply temperatures. However, most estimations of possible temperature reductions in existing buildings are based on available measurement data on room level or detailed building information about the building's physics to develop simulation models. To reveal the potential of temperature reduction for several buildings and strive for a wide applicability, the presented method focuses on estimations for temperature reduction in existing buildings with limited input data. By evaluating historic heat demand data on the building level, outdoor temperatures and information about installed heaters, the minimal actual necessary supply temperature is calculated for each heater in the building using the LMTD approach. Based on the calculated required supply temperatures for each room at different outdoor temperatures, the overall necessary supply temperatures to be provided to the building are chosen. Thus, the minimal heatcurve possible for an existing building is deduced. The method described is applied to multiple existing office buildings at the campus of Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany, demonstrating the fast application for several buildings with limited expenditure. Furthermore, a developed adapted heatcurve is implemented in one real building and evaluated in relation to the previously applied heatcurve of the heating system.