Journal Article

Integrating routing costs into the design of district heating network paths

Vivian, Jacopo, Khajedehi, Mohamad, Bernardoni, Filippo, Lorenzoni, Arturo

2025

Overview

District heating networks (DHNs) offer an efficient and sustainable solution for urban energy supply by leveraging otherwise wasted energy and investment costs. However, identifying DHN opportunities often presents significant challenges. In cities where this infrastructure needs to be designed from scratch, determining the most efficient way to connect buildings to a heat network is not a trivial problem. Indeed, physical constraints and specific costs for groundwork, which vary depending on the streets where pipes must be buried, must be considered in the early design of a district heating network. This step is crucial to minimise the disturbance to existing services, such as reduced traffic, limited access to commercial activities, and temporary interruption to services supplied by other infrastructures. The methodology is applied to the city of Padua, where a screening study is currently being conducted to assist the Municipality in finding the best way to decarbonise its building stock via district heating networks supplied by waste and renewable heat. By embedding road service costs into the optimisation parameters, our analysis reveals alternative network paths that differ from conventional distance-minimising solutions. The findings show that an optimal selection of connected buildings can result in up to 25% higher performance compared to connecting all the buildings. Additionally, with an 8% reduction in the performance indicator, the effect of choosing a terrain-aware design can lead to a more practical solution.

• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Subject: Buildings / Cities / District heating / District Heating Network / Energy costs / Network Optimisation / Optimization / Urban Building Energy Modelling