A fully renovated silo and a new apartment complex in Copenhagen's new district Nordhavn. These buildings are part of an ambitious four-year test project to demonstrate the dynamic energy system of the future. In Nordhavn, the buildings are for instance used to test the bricks' ability to store heat.

‘’We have installed intelligent building automation, which collects data on electricity and heat consumption, CO2 levels and light on an overall level and even in the single rooms of the apartments. Compared with weather prognosis, data from a local weather station and the general heat demand, we wish to demonstrate how buildings can work as valuable heat storage units in our energy system’’, said Allan Andreasen, CEO of ABB’s division for Electrification Products.

All data is sent to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU)’s Powerlab encrypted, and DTU’s Department of Civil Engineering develops the algorithms to make the energy system become self-regulating.

Supporting district heating

According to Allan Andreasen, the purpose of including the buildings in the energy system is to relieve the district heating system.

-Related solution: Nordhavn - the city district of broad horizons

‘’Especially during winter, where the demand for heat is high, it is expensive for the district heating plants to increase production. If these plants instead were able to adjust the amount of heat transferred to the buildings, the plants would be able to reduce their costs significantly. In addition, this is an energy efficient approach’’, said Allan Andreasen.

Consequently, the solution is to take the peak of heat demand, so-called peak shaving.

An important piece of the puzzle

Solutions to store energy in order to ensure peak shaving is highly topical at the moment – in both the heating and electricity sector.

-Related solution: Active house monitoring via an indoor environment intelligence instrument 

Within the framework of EnergyLab Nordhavn, ABB has previously developed a battery-storage system for Radius Electricity Network, which is going to ensure peak shaving at the local electricity network during times of high electricity demand.

‘’Energy storage is an important piece of the puzzle in a sustainable energy system, and buildings offer a great potential for being included in the system as equally important units as electricity storage’’, said Allan Andreasen.

Source: Energy Supply