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Technology of Wallonia Energy, Environment and sustainable Developmen
TWEED aims to play a major role in the business development of "sustainable energy" sectors.
Its first mission is to support investments in production and exploitation of sustainable energy by gathering opportunities around concrete projects. The objective is to create the conditions for the achievement of qualitative industrial projects with sufficient payback levels to drain adequate financial means. For this purpose, the approach will be reactive and proactive in order to stir up new projects.
"Sustainable energy" covers: Renewable energy sources | energy efficiency | Green products
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District Heating?
TWEED cluster supports District Heating projects. The article below explains briefly the undeniable advantages of district heating and the current barriers. TWEED will organize very soon (with Edora) activities and workshops around this topic in order to promote district heating, raise public awareness and support the creation of Walloon industrial projects.
Content (document translated from French, TWEED do not guarentee the exactitude of the translation, original file):
Contrary to what many people think, the residential sector (tertiary sector and housing) is one of the first causes of GHG emissions (36 % in 2005) in Belgium because it is strongly dependent to fossil energy (gas, fuel oil) for the heating of buildings. In Belgium, we spend on average 13 Mtoe of primary energy on the heating of buildings (residential 75 %, 25% tertiary). In order to meet the objectives for greenhouse gas reduction but also, to reduce the oil dependency, it won't be enough to use energy efficiently but it will be more than necessary to use other sources of energy than the fossil fuels.
Consequently the heating will have to be massively insured by sources of heat which do not contribute (or with a limited impact) to the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration: fatal heat in factories or waste incineration industries, biomass, geothermic heat, CHP power plant (Combined Heat Power), solar heat, etc.
However, for some of them, these forms of heat can only be conveyed by district heating (heat network)
chart source: www.ecoheatcool.org
" The right-hand bar contains the estimated final end-use of heat for various purposes, electricity for power and lightning, and finally power for overcoming friction, speed change, altitudes, and air resistance in transportation. Heat amounts to more than 20 EJ, while electricity use was 10,4 EJ, since some electricity was used for transportation purposes. While about one third of the energy is lost in energy conversion (primary energy supply to final consumption), further huge heat losses appear in the second step from high temperature industrial processes, heat generation in local boilers, and conversion losses from engines in vehicles.
Apparent in the graphic is the enormous amount of heat wasted in energy transformation and the equally large amount of energy in the form of heat lost in end use. Together these losses amount to more energy than is used for heating in buildings in all of Europe!
Basically what district heating and cooling offers, is to distribute part of the heat wasted in energy transformation and industrial end-use (= surplus heat,) and thereby replace fossil primary energy used for heating and hot water preparation in buildings ( source Heat & Power)."
Often underestimated in Belgium or ignored, district heating (heat network) can play a decisive role in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions but also can help to stabilize the energy cost to heat, a basic need which weighs often too much in the total household costs
A heat network, also called district heating , is for a city (or area) what a central heating is to a house; it supplies heat to buildings (residential, publics, industrial) for space heating and for the sanitary hot water, or for industrial processes (steam, water, etc.).
The installation comprises one or several heat sources (biomass heater, geothermic, heat recuperator, etc.), a network (primary and/or secondary) of pipes laid in the public or private roads carrying heat to substation, to the final users.
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The heat is generated by a heat production unit and then carried by a heat transfer fluid (often water) to users (accommodations, public or private buildings as schools, hospitals, etc.).
Like in a usual central heating, the temperature in the building (and rooms) can be regulated (via thermostatic valve). Furthermore, the consumer pays only the energy consumed thanks to measuring instruments (calorific meter).
In Europe, more than 10% of the population (housing and tertiary) is connected to a district heating.
Sorted by final consumption use, the vastest networks are situated in Germany (12 % of heat needs), in Sweden, in Denmark (50 %) and in a number of Eastern European countries (Poland, Czech Republic, etc.).
Almost all Icelandic households (95%) have their heat supplied by networks. This heat comes in major part from geothermic energy. The case of Denmark is very interesting; district heating covers more than 60 % of the supply in heat for buildings. In 2007, 80 % of this heat was produced by CHP unit (Combined heat and power). Furthermore, the part of the heat produced by incineration of waste units amounted to a little more than 20 % of the total production. (Danish Energy Statistics 2007)
Most of major cities in Denmark have district heating installed; the most important one is in Copenhagen. It supplies more than 275.000 households (95 % of the population) through 55 km of pipes (double pipes)! Its peak production capacity is 663 MW (CTR I/S source).
The buying price of the heat (NVAT) for this network is about 49€ by MWh! It demonstrates the competitiveness of the system; the cost price in 2009 for 1 MWh of heat produced by an individual gas boiler (TOP HR) was estimated to be 70€ in Belgium.
Belgium had some cases of district heating but unfortunately, they haven't been a good experience because they were very badly conceived or badly insulated (oversizing, high maintenance costs, enormous heat loss, etc.). Fortunately, the progress in the pipe insulation realized since then allows us to build district heating with minimal heat losses.
Collective heating presents numerous advantages on the environmental, economic and technical levels; for example, the user is freed from the constraints of maintenance and no more worried by the supply of his fuel, a collective boiler with bigger capacity (and well-maintained) pollutes much less than several individual boilers (better efficiency and centralized emissions), if the heat comes from renewable energy sources such as biomass, the consumer can be protected from oil price fluctuations and the predicted increasing prices of fossil fuels. Environmentally speaking, the combustion of a ton of biomass allows approximately the saving of a ton of CO2. The use of renewable energies (wood, etc.) mobilizes more long-term jobs on a regional and local level. Furthermore, district heating allows several producers to inject heat in the network (CHP, Wood, geothermic energy). This promotes an energy mix.
At the moment, district heating (with biomass boilers or others) encounters some difficulties in Belgium. Besides the fact of mobilizing a district, an area or encouraging local authority to take part in the project, other obstacles remain.
Liberalized markets concentrate their investments on projects with rather short payback periods. That is the main reason why, private investors do not want (or little) to invest in projects such as district heating networks which require a long-term commitment.
The first difficulty is the additional cost of the investment. The pipes network constitutes a heavy investment (on average 450€ per meter, prices are different in urban zones or in the country /new construction work) which does not pay off over a few years, but rather a dozen years. Often, these projects do not provide an internal rate of return which exceeds the level rate of the investment decision.
Savings realized on the purchase of the fuel (wood chips, waste or others) are not enough for the moment to balance the additional cost of the investment, which corresponds mainly to the cost of the pipes network.
When fossil energy prices are very low (like in 2009), a district heating supplied by a biomass boiler is not very competitive. With a selling price close to 50€ /MWh, natural gas is indeed a serious competitor of the wood (the MWh of heat oscillates between 42 and 56 €HT depending on the district heating.)
An subvention is thus necessary and must represent between 30 and 80 % of the additional cost of the installation!
But, in the case of high oil prices (in 2008), the competitiveness of a biomass district heating is strengthened and projects become profitable!
Besides the financial barriers of such projects, a whole series of barriers can appear.
These types of projects being rather innovative in Belgium, barriers can appear in the following domains:
- The legal and contractual framework (servitude, property, concession, subscription, etc.) can be not well adapted or difficult to implement. - Engineering (design, optimization, heat exchanger, choice of the suppliers, etc.): the implementation of the network requires know-how; the network flow optimization is of a major importance for the realization of a network - Pipes installation (training of the staff, etc.) - Regulation (optimization of the temperature of the network according to the consumer profiles and the seasons, the coexistence with solar panels) - Maintenance, supply - Management, telemonitoring (development of hardware's and software's). - Etc.
However, once the project realized, there are important effects on these domains in terms of job creation, development of new skills, specialization, etc.
