Distributed cold storages for district cooling in Sweden- The current context and opportunities for the cold supply expansion

This work analyzes the current context of district cooling (DC) in Sweden and thereby proposes opportunities in cost-effective and environmentally friendly expansion of cold supplies. The current state of DHC in Sweden here is mapped via a comprehensive literature assessment coupled with information collection from individual DHC suppliers in Sweden. These findings are concisely discussed herein, mapping the current context of DC in Sweden. The investigation here yields that the cold supply in Sweden today is achieved by employing free cooling (FC, extracting cold from natural cold sources, e.g. deep sea, river or lake water, via heat exchangers), absorption coolers (ACs), compression coolers (CCs) as well as heat pumps (HPs, with or without heat recovery), and cold storages (mainly using water). This technology mix is used in varying shares by different regions, based on the available resources, e.g. large water bodies to drive FC. When excess heat is available, AC is also a preferred choice. HPs are becoming increasingly interesting, for their synergies in simultaneously providing heat and cold. The peak demands of cold are met with cold storages as well as more ‘operationally’ expensive technologies, such as CCs. The cold storages primarily cover the daily cold peaks in summer, driven by the large differences in the cooling loads between the day and night. The current DC provision in Sweden is around 1 TWh, while the total cooling demand is around 3-5 TWh, therefore with a clear deficit in supply. Interestingly, the DC supply is projected to grow up to around 3 TWh by 2030. With population growth, the DC demands will also rise, and fulfilling these cooling demands with cost-effective and renewable solutions is imperative. To inspire the Swedish DC growth, herein certain international examples on power-to-cold (PtC) combining peak shaving with cold storages, e.g. based on water, ice, and thermochemical heat storage systems (TCS) are also discussed. Finally, critic

QC 20190523

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