The Benefits of Combined District Energy Modelling and Monitoring: the Case of District Heating

Urban areas represent sensitive centres of energy use: the district scale notably appears highly suitable for the implementation of energy management strategies. Recently smart metering and monitoring applied to electrical grids have been drawing the full attention of the scientific community. This is insufficient: the monitoring-based approach should address the complete set of energy sources, carriers and conversion points, including district heating systems. However, the deployment of IT-equipped energy networks raises economic and regulatory issues that must be evaluated, including the competitiveness of ubiquitous monitoring and the creation of new end-user pricing structures. Modern energy policies are expected to face this evolution. This paper argues that direct and indirect benefits of monitoring policies for district energy systems are numerous. The necessity to consider both modelling and monitoring during project implementation is stressed: technical, economic and environmental aspects of district energy systems are considered and help identify possibilities for future studies.

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