District Cooling – assessment of price models supporting the efficiency

Paper in proceeding, 2022

District cooling is an energy efficient cooling supply technology compared to building individual solutions. However, many district cooling systems suffer from low return temperatures, which usually originate from the buildings’ systems and substations andcause increased operating costs for the district cooling company. One potential solution to this problem is to ensure the district cooling price model sufficiently incentivizes the district cooling customers to maintain well-performing substations. The aim of this study is therefore to assess district cooling price models which reward well-performing substations. The study is based on operational data from an actual district cooling system located in Gothenburg, Sweden and 26 of its connected buildings. Four price models were designed based on the existing price model’s components power, energy, and flow along with either a delta-T or a return temperature component. The new price models resulted in lower costs for customers having substations with high delta-Ts compared to the reference price model. The results of this study showed a delta-T, or a return temperature component are more effective in providing economic incentives for customers to maintain well-performing substations compared to utilizing only aflow component. Moreover, it was shown the strongest incentives are realized with both a flow and a temperature component.