Abstract

This report aims to evaluate the potential of sharing energy regarding heat and cooling between buildings in a small decentralized energy system. A model of an energy substation was developed in IDA ICE Advanced level only system to create a time efficient tool that is easy to handle for people in the industry. Three cases of building stocks with different heating and cooling demands were modeled in the energy substation, both separately and collectively, to investigate the differences in energy performance as a result of energy recovery between buildings.

The study also contained a sociotechnical aspect of the decentralized energy system. Interviews were carried out to study how a mutual energy substation is implemented in reality and what challenges and opportunities the technology faces. An important conclusion is that the future development for this new technology is highly dependent on an increased cooperation between companies in the industry.

The simulations of the cases showed an improved energy performance for the mutual energy substations in all three cases, seven percent improvement as most. The report concludes that there is potential for an improved energy performance in a building stock when implementing a mutual energy substation since it enables the ability to save energy through energy recovery. Furthermore, it is concluded that a resembling heat and cooling demand within the building stock increases the total energy performance of the system. An improved control system of the model is recommended before deciding if and where it is beneficial to implement a mutual energy substation.