How To Combine a Solar Heating Plant and a CHP most Efficiently for Industrial Applications?
Abstract
To successfully decarbonize the industrial heat demand efficient solutions to reduce the CO2-emissions of the industrial heat supply are required. Since solar heating plants usually cannot supply a company’s low temperature heat demand, they must be combined with other low carbon technologies. Combined heat and power plants represent one of the most efficient technologies for generating heat and electricity from fossil fuels. In the future, CHP plants fueled by H2 or biogas can be an important component of sector coupling. Nevertheless, the operation of CHP plants with fossil fuels causes CO2 emissions, and renewable fuels are scarce. Therefore, a combination with e.g. solar thermal is recommended in order to reduce the operating hours. This study analyzes the combination of solar heating plants and CHPs based on TRNSYS simulations. Variations of the hydraulics, system design and operation, as well as control, result in an optimized system design considering the diverse industrial boundary conditions. The assessment is performed considering a techno-economic evaluation.