Demand response in the German district heating system

The renewable energy share in energy supply systems is increasing for carbon neutrality. The realization of carbon neutrality can be supported by demand response (DR) strategies. This paper analyzed the DR control benefits of a German district heating (DH) system. For the first step, in German conditions, three building types were simulated by IDA-ICE software with and without a rule-based DR control. Secondly, a community was established based on the heat demand of the simulated buildings. This paper selected two different production scenarios. One scenario consisted by a biofuel CHP and gas boilers and the other one included a heat pump, an electric heater, and a solar thermal storage. After that, the production of the two scenarios with and without DR was optimized by the HGSO tool and it calculated the total production costs and CO2 emissions. It indicates that building owners and DH producers all earn benefits from the application of demand response. The maximum heating cost saving by DR is 4.9% for building owners. In the optimized two production scenarios, DH producers gain higher financial benefits and there are less CO2 emissions. The maximum total generation cost and CO2 emission savings are 12.6% and 8.6%, respectively.