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Energy flexibility characteristics of centralized hot water system in university dormitories

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Abstract

The large-scale application of renewable energy is an important strategy to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality in the building sector. Energy flexibility is essential for ensuring balance between energy demand and supply when targeting the maximum penetration rate of renewable energy during the operation of regional integrated energy systems. Revealing the energy flexibility characteristics of centralized hot water systems, which are an important source of such flexibility, is of great significance to the optimal operation of regional integrated energy systems. Hence, in this study, based on the annual real-time monitoring data, the energy flexibility of the centralized hot water system in university dormitories is evaluated from the perspective of available storage capacity (CADR), recovery time (trecovery), and storage efficiency (ηADR), by the data-driven simulation method. The factors influencing the energy flexibility of the centralized hot water system are also analyzed. Available storage capacity has a strong positive correlation with daily water consumption and a strong negative correlation with daily mean outdoor temperature. These associations indicate that increased water use on the energy flexibility of the centralized hot water system is conducive to optimal dispatching. In contrast, higher outdoor temperature is unfavorable. The hourly mean value of the available storage capacity in spring and winter is found to be around 80 kWh in the daytime, and about twice that in summer and autumn. Recovery time is evenly distributed throughout the year, while trecovery/CADR in spring and winter is about half that in summer. The storage efficiency was significantly higher in spring, summer, and winter than in autumn. The hourly mean storage efficiency was found to be about 40% in the daytime. The benefits of activating energy flexibility in spring and winter are the best, because these two seasons have higher available storage capacity and storage efficiency, while the benefit of activating energy flexibility is the highest at 6:00 a.m., and very low from midnight to 3:00 a.m.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Center for Balance Architecture of Zhejiang University under the project: K Transversal 20203512-24C. This study was also partially supported by the Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau (No. 2021S141).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Zhiqin Rao, Shuqin Chen & Ang Yu

  2. Center for Balance Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Shuqin Chen

  3. Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, 315100, China

    Isaac Lun

  4. Department of General Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310012, China

    Lizhi Shen & Huijun Fu

Authors
  1. Zhiqin Rao
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  2. Shuqin Chen
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  4. Lizhi Shen
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  5. Ang Yu
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  6. Huijun Fu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Zhiqin Rao, Shuqin Chen, Isaac Lun, Lizhi Shen, Ang Yu and Huijun Fu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Zhiqin Rao and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shuqin Chen.

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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

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Rao, Z., Chen, S., Lun, I. et al. Energy flexibility characteristics of centralized hot water system in university dormitories. Build. Simul. 16, 641–662 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-023-1008-2

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