Smart Control of Small District Heating: Towards an Actual Implementation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52825/isec.v2i.3376Keywords:
Small District Heating, Predictive Control, Reduction, Storage, Controller DeploymentAbstract
Small district heating networks (sDHN) will play an important role in the decarbonation of the heat delivery sector in the coming years. Smart control of the production is required to best integrate renewable and waste heat. However, deployment of smart control on an sDHN is rare and challenging, as only limited computing resources can be deployed online. The present work proposes an approach to deploy smart control on an sDHN with little computing resources. A model predictive control (MPC) gives power-level instructions every 15min. An intermediate control (IC) leads the production via thermal-hydraulic commands, with respect to the MPC instructions, while ensuring state feedback in terms power for the MPC. A parametric version of the MPC was developed with machine-learning to free the approach from using mathematical solvers online. Simulation tests are being conducted on a model of the sDHN facility at the CEA-INES in the French Alps to evaluate the approach.
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Copyright (c) 2026 François Lédée, Zinédine Taïeb, Adrien Wulveryck, Nicolas Vasset, Florent Lefrançois, Nicolas Lamaison
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