The heating system of Nydal : An individual or a common solution?

Sammanfattning: The municipality of Knivsta plans to expand from 15,000 to 25,000 inhabitants until the year 2025. In order to do so the municipality is planning to build a new residential area, Nydal. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to estimate the heat demand for the new district and to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using a common or an individual heat solution. The common solution consists of a pipe grid system connecting each building with a central heat source and in the individual solution each building has its own heat source. The heat units that have been used are combined heat and power and solar thermal heating. The total yearly heat demand for Nydal was calculated to total 21.6 GWh for the common solution and 19.4 GWh for the individual solution. This implies that the losses in the pipe grid are 2.2 GWh. The heat demand peaks are largest in January, about 7600 kW, and smallest in July, about 300 kW. To cover the heat demand for the common solution during summer, solar panels need to cover 6.5 per cent of the roof area. To be able to cover the heat demand for the larger buildings in the individual solution up to 45 per cent of the roof area needs to be covered with solar panels. Furthermore, the total installed heat power from CHP plants is 4320 kW in the common solution and 7375 kW in the individual solution. In conclusion, a common solution is to prefer because less CHP needs to be installed despite heat losses in the pipe grid.