Techno-economics of solar re-powering and retro-fitting an existing district heating network

• District heating systems are more cost-effective with smaller boiler and storage. • Solar heating is cost-effective when added to existing district heating systems. • When replacing the boiler adding solar heating has similar heat cost to no solar. • It’s not cost-effective with evacuated tube collectors for district heating. • Solar heating makes backup-boilers equally cost-effective regardless of fuel type. Most of the district heating systems today use higher operating temperatures than those in new-built systems, possibly limiting compatibility with solar energy. This study evaluates the cost-effectiveness in terms of unit heat cost of integrating solar heating into an existing district heating system compared to not using solar energy, under changing economic boundary conditions such as collector and fuel cost, in addition to discount rate. This is investigated for both a scenario where the solar heating and a boiler replacement is done concurrently, as well as a scenario where solar heating is added to an existing system without replacing the boiler. A theoretical district heating supply of 3 MW is modelled and simulated based on a real system and load profile. The heat supply is varied to include storage with or without solar heating. Results for a 3 % discount rate indicate that; Replacing a 3 MW boiler with a slightly smaller boiler of 2.5 MW and adding a storage is cost effective and yields a unit heat cost of 58.0 EUR/MWh (16.1 EUR/TJ) which is a reduction of about 6 %. Installing solar heating together with the boiler replacement yields a unit heat cost as low as 55.7 EUR/MWh (15.4 EUR/GJ) which is a reduction of about 8 %. When replacing the boiler, all system configurations have similar unit heat costs compared to a boiler-only system, so factors such as emission reductions due to solar heating are relevant when considering alternatives. Furthermore, adding solar flat plate collectors corresponding to a 13 % solar fraction without replacing the boiler can reduce the unit heat cost as low as 34.8 EUR/MWh (9.7 EUR/TJ), which is 32 % lower than without solar. Evacuated tube collectors can increase this solar fraction to 17 % with similar system size, although at a higher cost. At a discount rate of 5 % solar heating is cost-competitive when fuel cost is above 26 EUR/MWh (7.2 EUR/TJ) and at 7 % competitive when fuel cost is above 32 EUR/MWh (8.9 EUR/TJ). Increasing solar heating system size reduces the backup-boiler fuel use during summer maintenance and makes fuel type less relevant for the overall unit heat cost.