Sahabandu, Niki;
(2025)
Informing Heat Network Design: A Study of Demand Diversity and Domestic Hot Water Storage Using High Resolution Measured Data.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Heat networks (HN) have a key role in strategies proposed by the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, in support of which they recognise the requirement of proper standards. Collaboration across industry has culminated in technical standards, however, evidence has cast doubt on some of these. The diversity methods in the DS439, widely used in the UK, has been shown to overestimate peak capacities. Moreover, HN storage and its impact on peak demands and sizing, in which diversity plays a key role, is contested within industry. Thus, further study of the impact of storage and of the diversity methodology is required to inform the development of HNs. Considering this, the thesis aims to use real demand data to quantify the effect of domestic storage on HN demand. To do this, domestic hot water storage models and a distribution system model were built. The models were used to produce residual consumer demands for a sample of dwellings in a case study HN in the UK and to evaluate the impact of two storage scenarios, representing high and low diversity charging strategies, on the distribution pipe sizing and thermal loss from the stores as well as from the distribution network. The results in this work can directly inform the district heat industry technical guidance and bring clarification to long standing industry debates. They include the recommendation of a sampling time for measuring demand for sizing HNs and an assessment of the overestimation of peak capacities in a real case study HN. Additionally, results show that although introducing storage reduces the thermal losses in the distribution network as expected, it doesn’t outweigh the increase in thermal losses from the stores themselves. Comparing storage scenarios showed the extent of the role that diversity plays in reducing peak demands across various points in the distribution network.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Informing Heat Network Design: A Study of Demand Diversity and Domestic Hot Water Storage Using High Resolution Measured Data |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10206285 |
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