District cooling in copenhagen

The planned frst district cooling system includes production

and distribution of district cooling based on an integrated
production of cooling from:
Free cooling and pre-cooling (seawater)
Absorption cooling (based on steam)
Compressor-based cooling
A study has shown that such a combination will be favourable.
The energy fows in the system can be seen in table 1. These
data refects the optimal control strategy for the system.
Table 1: District cooling system - energy balance.
District cooling - a hot issue
District cooling has become a hot issue in Denmark. in copen-
hagen, customers are ready for it. hence, copenhagen energy
is actively seeking ways of providing district cooling and has
joined the european project summerheat. Various district
heating companies have made feasibility studies and aim at
establishing district cooling systems, but an adequate legal
framework is lacking.
Seventeen potential district cooling customers have been
identifed having a cooling demand of 15.3 MW in total. Five ma-
jor customers all have existing central cooling plants and rep-
resent 80% of the total demand identifed. The main technical
design parameters are shown in table 2. The installation of the
heat exchanger allows for three different modes of operation
as shown in table 3.
Table 2: main technical Design parameters
Table 3: moDes of operation
connected clients demand 15.3 mWth
Dimensioning outdoor temperature (Dot) 28c
capacity coincidence factor 0.85 -
production capacity 13 mWth
annual cooling demand 21,600 mWh
equivalent full load hours, customer side 1,411 h
Design life time 220,000 h
temperature at customer sub-station 6c
return temperature from customer sub-station at Dot 16c
return temperature from customer
sub-station at minimum load 13 c
seawater temperature is below 5.5c and cooling demand
less than 2400 kW. all cooling demands are covered by the
free cooling heat exchangers
seawater temperature is between 5.5c and 11.5c. the heat
exchangers are used for pre-cooling of the cooled water, be-
fore it is cooled by the chillers to the desired temperature
seawater temperature is above 11.5c. the seawater is too
warm to be used for free cooling and the chillers provide all
cooling. the free cooling heat exchangers will be bypassed on
both sides
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J o U r n a l n 0 . 3 / 2 0 0 7
Mr. Jan Don Hgh,
District Cooling, Kbenhavns Energi
Mr. Nick Bjrn Andersen,
Energy Consulting Network
energy balance
free cooling
electric chiller
absorption chiller
losses
Distribution
auxiliary
total
output
cooling
gWh/year
6.49
9.37
6.26
-0.32
21.80
input
electricity
gWh/year
0.22
0.95
0.02
0.14
0.23
1.56
input
heat
gWh/year
5.69
5.69
1) free cooling
2) combined operation
3) chiller cooling
Within the project, strategies for the increased usage of
Summerheat will be developed, and proposals for improving
the framework conditions will be addressed to policy makers.
Building owners and planners will be addressed by a guideline
providing comprehensive information about the application of
district cooling.
This work comprises in-depth market analysis of both the sup-
plying technologies and the demand side. Feasibility studies will
be carried out demonstrating advantages of district cooling. In
addition, the project encompasses targeted development and
improvement of framework conditions, information dissemina-
tion and other supportive actions to develop the market for
district cooling.
District cooling anD alternatiVes
Table 4 provides an overview of specifc plant data and charac-
teristics applicable to the fve different ways of providing cool-
ing that have been compared in the SummerHeat project. Gen-
eralised fgures have been used in the table, except for the KE
plant, where design data for the proposed system are shown.
It can be seen that there is a great difference between the
ratios (Design capacity / Capacity demand), as the centralised
district cooling plants beneft from less coincidence between
the maximum demands at the different customers (ratio:
0.85). For the distributed cooling production, which is also the
present situation, this ratio has been found to be approxi-
mately 1.2, refecting that the systems have a maximum capac-
ity of 1.2 times the dimensional cooling demand. Consequently,
this is refected in the number of operation hours.
bUilDing oWners anD real estate managers
are keen to connect to District cooling
Although it is not yet possible to connect to a district cool-
ing grid, Copenhagen Energy experiences a growing interest in
district cooling from potential customers in the Copenhagen
area. District cooling has caught the attention of many own-
ers of commercial buildings and offce buildings, as well as real
estate managers that are now addressing Copenhagen Energy
to investigate their opportunity to become district cooling
customers. The main motivation for the potential customers
is a better overall economy of a district cooling system com-
pared to the existing compressor-based chillers:
Need for refurbishment of existing compressor-based
cooling systems
New regulation abandoning HFC refrigerants
Saved maintenance costs
Less trouble
Reasonable low price on district cooling
copenhagen energy is taking part in
the eU proJect sUmmerheat
The SummerHeat project puts emphasis on increased use of
excess heat from CHP plants and incineration plants during
the summer, while at the same time reducing the consumption
of electricity for cooling in the commercial sectors.
In the course of the project, similar initiatives on district cooling
are taken in Vienna, Berlin, Grenoble, Prague and Copenhagen.
Table 4: technical Data for the compareD systems
District cooling - a hot issue
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e n e r g y a n D e n V i r o n m e n t
District cooling options ke plant Decentralised centralise Decentralised centra
compressor compressor absortion absortion
units units cooling cooling unit
plant Data
Cooling capacity demand MWcool 15.3 15.3 15.3 15.3 15.3
Ratio: Design capacity / Capacity Demand [-] 0.85 1.20 0.85 1.20 0.85
Aggregrated plant size MWcool 13.0 18.4 13.0 18.4 13.0
Full capacity operation hours hours 1411 976 1411 976 1411
Plant factor [-] 0.16 0.11 0.16 0.11 0.16
Cooling output MWh/year 18,350 17,928 18,350 17,928 18,350
Distribution effciency [-] 0.977 1 0.977 1 0.977
Cooling demand, customers MWh/year 17,928 17,928 17,928 35,856 17,928
Absorption cooling - electricity consump. MWH/MWh cool N/A N/A N/A 0.005 0.005
Consumption of electricity (0,005*cooling) MWh/year 1,540 7,171 3,277 90 92
Consumption of heat MWh/year 5,690 - - 26,758 21,588
comparing cooling options Using
primary resoUrce factors (prf)
In many district heating or district cooling systems, the con-
sumption of fossil fuels is lower than if compared with con-
sumption of fossil fuels in individual systems for heating or
cooling, particularly in systems utilising CHP and/or renewable
energy.
From an energy and environmental point of view, the use of
primary energy is the focal issue, when comparing the differ-
ent cooling options. Therefore the systems performances are
compared using Primary Resource Factors.
The value of the PRF for a specifc heating or cooling system
defnes the ratio between net fossil energy consumption and
heating or cooling energy delivered to the building. Hence, the
CO2 emissions are directly linked to the PRFs.
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In many traditional applications, the consumption of fossil fuel
is higher than heating or cooling delivered to the building re-
fecting energy effciency less than one and giving a PRF higher
than one. If the value is less than one, the total consumption
of non-renewable energy is less than the energy delivered to
the building. Very environmentally effcient heating and cool-
ing systems have a PRF close to zero, meaning that heating
or cooling only induce a small consumption of non-renewable
energy sources.
The approach used is based on the European standard prEN
15316-4-5 and on outputs of the European project ECOHEAT-
COOL (see project description and output at the Euroheat and
Power website: http://www.euroheat.org/ecoheatcool/ ).
PRFs have been derived for the different systems as shown
in fgure 1.
prf ValUe comparison
prf
central absortion cooling unit
Decentralised absortion cooling
centralised compressor unit
Decentralised compressor units
ke plant
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20
CHP
tnrrrifr6vfirrviv6urf
wrsfc6vritcrirtficfvtsuissi6c6uvtv
v6sxiiorvrj175,ox-2620Ainrvfsiuo
f+4543660366vrxs vrxs.oxwww.vrxs.ox
District cooling Uses less fossil energy
Compared with the alternatives, district cooling allows for us-
ing less primary energy.
The standard COP (Coeffcient of Performance) cannot be
used for comparison between the systems, due to the dif-
ferent meaning of the COP for compressor-based units and
absorption cooling units, and because the focal issue is con-
sumption of fossil energy. Thus, for comparison, a COP based
on the PRF values has been developed, hence embedding due
emphasis on the input of primary fossil energy.
The use of the COP
PRF
shows that the KE plant - having a COP
PRF

of 3.5 - is most effcient compared with the other solutions,
as seen in fgure 2 showing a comparison of the fve different
cooling systems as regards the COP based on consumption of
fossil energy.
Figure 2: DeriVeD cop baseD on consUmption of
primary fossil fUels.
District cooling - a hot issue
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e n e r g y a n D e n V i r o n m e n t
central absortion cooling unit
Decentralised absortion cooling
centralised compressor unit
Decentralised compressor units
ke plant
0.00 1.00 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 0.40 1.50
cop (baseD on prf)
cop (baseD on prf)
The COP
PRF
is given from:
COP
PRF
= Cooling output
/ (heat input * PRF
heat
+ electricity input * PRF
electricity
)
Copenhagen district-cooling system
Decentralised absortion cooling systems
Decentralised compressorbased cooling
0.300
0.250
0.200
0.150
0.100
0.050
0.000
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20
relation betWeen prf anD co2 of cooling system
District cooling loWers emissions
Figure 3 shows the emissions of CO2 from three of the com-
pared systems.
As seen, the proposed district cooling system for Copenhagen
shows the best performance as regards the environmental
impact.
Figure 3: co2-emissions VersUs prf. The specifc emissions
used for heat and electricity in the calculations apply to East-
ern Denmark.
an aDeqUate legal frameWork for District cooling
is lacking in Denmark
The national District Heating Association and the Danish Board
of District Heating (DBDH) have formed a small network of dis-
trict heating companies, now trying to move into the district
cooling area. Copenhagen Energy and other district heating
companies have already conducted feasibility studies on dis-
trict cooling systems and are now seeking ways of implement-
ing this technology.
At the moment this is far from straight forward, as Copenha-
gen Energy, along with other municipally owned district heating
companies, have experienced that they
are not allowed to operate district
cooling systems under the current
Danish legislative framework. As a con-
sequence, the legislative framework
is now under investigation and most
likely a new framework will be estab-
lished forming the basis for operation
of municipally owned district cooling
enterprises in Denmark.
The European project SUMMERHEAT
project has obtained fnancial sup-
port from the Intelligent Energy Eu-
rope programme. The participants
counts Berliner Energieagentur GmbH
(coordinator, Germany); Austrian En-
ergy Agency (Austria); CityPlan (Czech
Republic); Copenhagen Energy (Den-
mark); Energy Consulting Network
(Denmark); Wien Energie Fernvrme
(Austria); Rhnealpnergie (France);
EuroHeat&Power (Brussels) and Com-
pagnie de Chauffage Intercommunal de
lAgglomration Grenobloise (France).
For more information:
www.eu-summerheat.net
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J o U r n a l n 0 . 3 / 2 0 0 7
HYDRO-X A/S Tylstrupvej 50 9320 Hjallerup Denmark
Tel.: +45 98 28 21 11 Fax: +45 98 28 30 21 E-mail: info@hydro-x.com
www.hydro-x.com
With care, any building or
installation will last longer
we care about industrial water treatment
Variations in the pH-value and in the appearance of minerals demands for high
quality water treatment. Not only does the formation of corrosion harm the
systems; but as little as just one millimetre of scale causes an increased energy
consumption of approx 10%. Thus the overall operation costs as well as the lifetime
of the systems will improve considerably when proper water treatment is applied.
Photo: Recently the district heating system at the summer palace Tsarshoye Selo
at St. Petersburg was renovated. Now, Hydro-X water treatment helps maintaining
a high standard of operation.
The significance of good water quality
For further information please contact:
Kbenhavns Energi
Att.: Jan Don Hgh
restads Boulevard 35
DK-2300 Kbenhavn S
Phone: +45 3395 3395
Fax: +45 3395 2020
jdho@ke.dk
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