Large-city district-heating studies for the Minneapolis--St. Paul area

Technical Report · Wed Feb 08 04:00:00 EST 1978

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6740041· OSTI ID:6740041

Karnitz, M. A.; Rubin, A. M.

The Department of Energy, Minnesota Energy Agency, Northern States Power Company, and other local government and private organizations are cooperatively performing an in-depth application study to determine the feasibility of district heating for a large northern-U.S. city. Over 90% of the space- and water-heating requirements are currently supplied by oil and gas. Hence, district heating can potentially replace large quantities of scarce fuels with coal or nuclear resources. In addition, district heating, using a co-generation power plant, substantially increases the fuel-utilization efficiency when compared to an electric-only plant. A Swedish firm, AB Atomenergi, is performing a preliminary economic and technical assessment. The analysis uses current Swedish district-heating technology and experience, and adapts it, where necessary, to U.S. conditions. Preliminary Swedish results indicate favorable economics for a large system, which includes residential areas, when technology innovations such as temperature-resistant plastic piping are used. For conventional-piping technology the economics appear favorable for the commercial areas of the city core. The peak heat load for the Twin Cities is approximately 4200 MW(t). The scenario presented by AB Atomenergi assumes 2250 MW(t) would be supplied by co-generation units, and the remaining 2000 MW(t) would be peaking, heat-only units. The dual-purpose units would be used as the base load and would supply 90% of the total annual energy load. The interest generated by the joint U.S.-Swedish effort has guided the participants to more-detailed investigations of (1) energy sources, (2) distribution and building systems, (3) environmental acceptability, and (4) financial and organizational alternatives.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-26
• OSTI ID: 6740041
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-6283
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290800* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Heat Utilization-- (1980-)
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320600 -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Municipalities & Community Systems-- (1980-)
CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
CO-GENERATION
COAL
DISTRICT HEATING
ECONOMICS
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
ENERGY SOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
EUROPE
EVALUATION
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GREAT LAKES REGION
HEATING
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
MINNESOTA
NORTH AMERICA
NUCLEAR POWER
ORGANIZING
POWER
POWER GENERATION
PUBLIC UTILITIES
SCANDINAVIA
STEAM GENERATION
SWEDEN
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
TECHNOLOGY UTILIZATION
USA