Multi-Objective Optimal Integration of Solar Heating and Heat Storage into Existing Fossil Fuel-Based Heat and Power Production Systems

Increasing the share of Renewable energy sources in District Heating (DH) systems is of great importance to mitigate their CO 2 emissions. The combined integration of Solar Thermal Collectors (STC) and Thermal Energy Storage (TES) into existing Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems can be a very cost-effective way to do so. This paper aims at finding the optimal design of STC and TES systems integrated in existing CHP’s considering two distinct objectives: economic profitability and environmental impact. To do so, we developed a three-stage framework based on Pareto-optimal solutions generated by multi-objective optimization, a Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS)-entropy method to select the optimal solution, followed by the definition of final Operation strategy. We proposed relevant improvement of the state-of-the-art models used in similar analysis. We also applied the proposed methodology to the case of a representative, 12 MW th CHP plant. Our results show that, while the addition of TES or STC alone results in limited performances and/or higher costs, both the cost and the CO 2 emissions can be reduced by integrating the optimal combination of STC and TES. For the selected, optimal solution, carbon emissions are reduced by 10%, while the Annual Total Cost ( ATC ) is reduced by 3%. It also improves the operational flexibility and the efficiency by peak load shaving, load valley filling and thus by decreasing the peak load boiler operation. Compared to the addition of STC alone, the use of TES results in an increased efficiency, from 88% to 92%. The optimal share of STC is then increased from 7% to 10%.