Energy Efficiency Analysis Carried Out by Installing District Heating on a University Campus. A Case Study in Spain

This article analyses the reduction of energy consumption following the installation of district heating (DH) in the Miguel Delibes campus at the University of Valladolid (Spain), in terms of historical consumption and climate variables data. In order to achieve this goal, consumption models are carried out for each building, enabling the comparison of actual data with those foreseen in the model. This paper shows the statistical method used to accept these models, selecting the most influential climate variables data obtained by the models from the consumption baselines in the buildings at the Miguel Delibes campus through to the linear regression equations with a confidence level of 95%. This study shows that the best variables correlated with consumption are the degree-days for 58% of buildings and the average temperature for the remaining 42%. The savings obtained to date with this third generation network have been significantly higher than the 21% average for 33% of the campus buildings. In the case of 17% of the buildings, there was a significant increase in consumption of 20%, and in the case of the remaining 50% of the buildings, no significant differences were found between consumption before and after installation of district heating.