Holistic management of a smart city thermal energy plant with sewage heat pumps, solar heating, and grey water recycling

Abstract

This article introduces a modern thermal energy plant consisting of sewage heat pumps, a biogas boiler, thermal solar collectors, and grey water recycling. It further discusses advanced methods to achieve energy efficiency in the plant operation. The project is a collaboration between the industrial plant designer, the municipal plant owner, and the local academic institution. The article presents the framework for the collaboration. The overall target is to investigate how the experience and competence of the three partners can lead to improved operation using data-driven methods and optimization strategies. The industrial partner can closely follow up on its design and increase its knowledge of artificial intelligence and data-driven methods. The municipal partner is given a “free-of-charge” system review. New knowledge and reduced life cycle costs and emissions are possible outcomes. The academic partner gets access to a “living green laboratory,” a unique dataset, and the opportunity to validate developed models and optimization strategies. The plant represents the state-of-the-art for a medium scaled, local thermal energy production system in an existing building cluster. The design energy and emission targets are presented and compared to the operational results. Though the municipal partner can report good agreement between targets and results, an evaluation of the day-to-day operation identified practical examples of system conditions that Artificial Intelligence may improve. The article concludes with a description of plans for future work and a broader discussion of the impacts of introducing data-driven methods to real-life systems.

Using Artificial Neural Networks to Gather Intelligence on a Fully Operational Heat Pump System in an Existing Building Cluster

“…Implementing appropriate tools can enable operators of thermal energy plants to identify faults and errors in the system earlier than they do presently, and also enhance the system's operation through mathematical optimization [33]. The main target of this article was to present a method to develop a quick and precise heat pump model using readily available data.…”

“…While the TriCEP study case has been deemed successful in meeting design targets for energy results, several operational conditions with potential for improvement have been identified. A smart controller based on the developed heat pump models could be employed to evaluate the following tasks [33]:…”

“…The selected case study is the Triangulum Central Energy Plant (TriCEP) in Stavanger, Norway. The design principles, targets and energy results, including examples of suboptimal heat pump operations, are thoroughly described in a previous work [33]. Developed as part of the European Smart Cities and Communities Lighthouse Project Triangulum, the plant has been in operation since 2017.…”

“…In the view, the user can access figures containing historical data for each sensor or measuring unit. The time scales and the number of collected measurements are chosen by the user [33]. The data were manually captured by copying and pasting from the BAS to Excel.…”

Opportunities and Challenges for Research on Heat Recovery from Wastewater: Bibliometric and Strategic Analyses

“…Fadnes et al [129] Presentation of a modern thermal energy plant consisting of wastewater heat pumps, a biogas boiler, thermal solar collectors, and greywater recycling, the concept of which was created as a result of cooperation between three partners: the industrial plant designer, the municipal plant owner, and the local academic institution…”