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Final report: Solar district heating with pit storage for Swedish conditions
Dalarna University, School of Information and Engineering, Energy Technology. (Sustainable Energy Research Centre SERC)ORCID iD: 0009-0005-9937-4217
Högskolan i Halmstad.
Dalarna University, School of Information and Engineering, Energy Technology. (Sustainable Energy Research Centre SERC)ORCID iD: 0009-0001-8459-8614
Högskolan i Halmstad.
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2025 (English)Report (Other academic)
Sustainable development
SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy, SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities
Abstract [en]

Large-scale solar district heating has increased fast recently and is a commercial industry in Denmark with over 100 systems. Pit stores with high solar fraction exist in several of these systems. Some economic factors in Sweden are not as good as in Denmark. However, recent events have forced up the price of biomass in Sweden and other competing uses for the forest resource point to greater competition and thus higher prices, resulting in better viability for solar. The project has used geographic and geological data from e.g. SGU to identify which areas in Sweden that are potentially suitable for pit stores. The results from the screening process show that the vast majority of district heating areas have potentially suitable areas for pit storage within a reasonable distance from the network. Only 86 district heating areas do not. As there is no reliable data for the whole country for ground water level and flow, both important factors for economic viability, the results are optimistic. As to be expected, the results show large variations over the country, but in general there are more suitable areas in the south than north. The project also estimated how much heat solar and pit storage systems could potentially deliver to the district heating areas with suitable areas. If all of these identified district heating areas installed solar and pit storage systems covering 20% of their demand, 15% of Sweden’s total district heating demand would be supplied by solar. If all networks with potential areas for pit storage installed systems covering 40% of the local demand, the equivalent figure is 36%. Pre-feasibility studies for Råneå, Härnösand and Söderhamn show that the heat cost for solar heating systems is slightly higher than the current production heat cost in these networks, given the current interest rate. As the heat cost for solar is mostly dependent on the investment cost, it varies over time in principle only with the interest rate. A lower interest rate or small annual increases in fuel costs would make the studied solar heating systems economically viable. Costs, as for many other technologies, are lower for larger systems. Integration of a heat pump in the system is cost effective if the site of the pit store is in the periphery of the network and the district heating system has exhaust gas condensation. In practice there are many additional factors that can hinder building a pit store in the sites identified as suitable in the screening. The results of the screening are theoretical and are based on the assumption that none of these negative factors exist. Detailed on-site geological measurements are needed if one wants to take the next step in actually building a pit store.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Borlänge: Högskolan Dalarna, 2025. , p. 111
Keywords [en]
Solar thermal, district heating, pit thermal energy storage, case study, screening, GIS analysis
National Category
Energy Engineering
Research subject
Research Centres, Sustainable Energy Research Centre (SERC)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-50446OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-50446DiVA, id: diva2:1950984
Part of project
Soldriven fjärrvärme med groplager för svenska förhållanden, Swedish Energy Agency
Funder
Swedish Energy Agency, P2022-00461Available from: 2025-04-09 Created: 2025-04-09 Last updated: 2025-11-17Bibliographically approved

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Bales, ChrisSaini, Puneet

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
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  • ieee
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