New service solution optimises district heating at Danish utilities

With their Return Temperature Optimizer (RTO) service solution, Kamstrup has now carried out more than 50 cooling analyses at Danish district heating utilities. As part of the effort, they have analysed a total of more than 100,000 heating installations among consumers. The results show that there is considerable optimisation potential across the country in identifying and repairing faulty heating installations in the district heating network.

Utilities produce more heat than necessary 

Based on their RTO efforts, Kamstrup can conclude that there is a vast number of faulty heating installations in the district heating network – not only old installations, but also brand new ones. Of the more than 100,000 heating installations included in the analyses, as many as 40% were registered as faulty.

The fault can be anything from defective heat exchangers to incorrect regulation of the system. In any case, the faults result in losses for the utility companies, for example, in the form of unnecessarily high heat loss in the pipe network. This, in turn, leads to unnecessarily expensive heating bills for consumers.

RTO reduces heat loss

By identifying faults in consumers' heating installations, RTO has so far helped 15 utilities save money on heat production. Kamstrup has found that the service solution can typically lower the return temperature in the network by at least 1-2 °C, but at Sæby Varmeværk, a reduction of up to 5 °C has been observed. 

This means that utilities can increase their energy efficiency, save on costs, and reduce their CO2 emissions. Under our customer references, you can read about RTO at both Sæby Varmeværk and Solrød Forsyning and hear what the utilities think about the solution.

What is the consumers’ experience of Return Temperature Optimizer? When the RTO team has analysed the district heating network and identified faulty heating installations, they contact the owners through e-Boks, a secure digital mailbox service primarily used in Scandinavia. Here, they are informed about the extent of the problem and how much they can save on their heating budget by having their district heating installation repaired. 

So far, approximately 25,000 notifications have been sent to around 11,500 installation owners. The reactions have shown that a large proportion of consumers appreciate the help and the opportunity to reduce their costs. In this way, the proactive method has been an effective tool to help utility companies and consumers become energy efficient.

As part of the green transition, it is now required that all utilities publish an annual district heating declaration, which provides consumers insight into how the utility company produces heat and, consequently, how much renewable energy sources are used in the production. 

Until now, the burning of biomass such as straw and wood chips has been defined as renewable energy in the declaration, but due to CO2 emissions from biomass combustion, this may soon be a thing of the past. 

More and more utilities are therefore investing in heat pumps and other renewable energy sources. These energy sources require low temperatures in the network be economically viable, and therefore it is crucial that consumer installations function properly and return the district heating water to the utility at a low return temperature.