Responsive District Heating for a Sustainable Power Grid

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2024-01-03

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2887

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Abstract

The electrification of energy use for building heating-cooling and transportation sectors increases stress on an already strained electric power grid. Shifting energy end-use to electricity presupposes that electricity generation is relatively clean in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the legacy power system and significant operational constraints on the power grid though, the majority of electricity generation is now, and will continue for many years, to be predominantly powered from fossil fuel combustion. The continuing need to decrease carbon and other GHGs raises the need to find clean energy sources outside of the electric power grid. One clean energy technology for building heating and cooling is geothermal energy, a well-proven and mature technology option, especially for district heating applications. With the main energy source being clean and renewable, geothermal energy decreases direct combustion of fossil fuels, and so contributes significantly to reducing GHGs from building energy needs. With the goals of sustainability and reduced emissions, serving building heating and cooling with geothermal systems rather than pushing for electrification will reduce the burden on the power grid and have a high probability of decreasing pollutant emissions from building energy demands. This paper introduces a geothermal energy system for Smith College, in Northampton MA, USA, that includes geothermal heat exchangers, thermal energy storage and heat pumps. Elements of the system rely on electricity for operation, making responsive demand for both thermal energy and for electrical use integral to the system design. The proposed district heating system is designed to decrease GHG emissions and support the College goal to minimize operations costs.

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Distributed, Renewable, and Mobile Resources, district heating, electrical demand response, geothermal heat exchange, heat pumps, thermal demand response, thermal energy storage

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10 pages

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Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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Table of Contents

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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