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Hydrothermal modeling and decoupling analysis for secondary district heating systems: A digital twin approach

Author

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  • Liu, Zhikai
  • Dai, Ting
  • Zhang, Lian
  • Xu, Xin
  • Zhang, Qi
  • Wang, Yaran

Abstract

With the rapid development of Internet of Things technology, the concept of digital twins has emerged. By constructing a digital secondary district heating system (DHS), it can help the operation and maintenance staff of the thermal company to comprehensively understand the impact of different control strategies on room temperature and energy consumption, thus reducing operating costs. On the other hand, it is difficult to realize the decoupling experiment of thermal and hydraulic characteristics of the secondary DHS under the existing test conditions. In this paper, a hydrothermal coupling model of the secondary DHS is developed through the joint simulation of EnergyPlus and Matlab. The proposed modeling method is validated using real-world engineering projects. Based on this model, a decoupling analysis is conducted to provide deeper insights into the dynamic characteristics of secondary DHS. This analysis further clarifies the different levels of control tasks managed by the supply temperature and terminal flow rate regulation. The results demonstrate that adopting a terminal flow rate control strategy can improve residential thermal comfort while achieving energy savings of 12.2 %–15.4 %.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Zhikai & Dai, Ting & Zhang, Lian & Xu, Xin & Zhang, Qi & Wang, Yaran, 2025. "Hydrothermal modeling and decoupling analysis for secondary district heating systems: A digital twin approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 322(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:322:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225013234
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.135681
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