Hi
I'm trying to certify a building in Denmark which is connected to the local district heating system. This system delivers district heating to about 275.000 households, the plant is about 15 miles away and is run by a private company. We can't get detailed information about pressure loss in the pipes etc. Anyone knows how to adress this? As I read the new guidance on DES we can only get 10 points for this model if we don't do it upstream which is kind of crazy;-) But why can't we only get 10 points for this building that saves more than 75% energy compared to the baseline?
Does anyone know when this DES will be unloaded for these very large complex DES?
Kind regards
Niels Varming
Christopher Schaffner
CEO & FounderThe Green Engineer
LEEDuser Expert
963 thumbs up
October 14, 2010 - 4:29 pm
The logic for a points cap is that the DES may not be very efficient.
In the old DES guidance, the plant efficiencies had to be included, so a project connected to a poorly performing plant might not any points. At least with this new guidance your project could get some credit.
What are the thermal losses on a 15 mile heating pipe? Why would you not want to consider a stand-alone system?
Lise Dannesboe
COWI86 thumbs up
October 15, 2010 - 1:09 am
Hi Christopher
Thank you for your reply.
The DES is very efficient. Compared to oil or gas there is a significant smaller CO2-outlet by using DES. The thermal losses of a large system of heating pipes are of course accounted for in this CO2-calculation. This solution is a lot cheaper to establish than a stand-alone system, and there is also a requirement i the danish building regulation that we should use district heating.
So environmental , economic and legislative issues have influenced the choice of district heating.
I think you need to understand that this is a very large system and not just a system covering a campus or something similar. Most of the city of Copenhagen (approx. population 1 million) is covered by district heating, so it is not a 15 mile heating pipe, but a network of heating pipes supplying all the households in the capital of Denmark.
So bottomline is that I have taken the most environmental friendly heating supply, I have designed a building that uses less than 25% of the baseline building, but I still can't get the maximum number of points.
Is the way to go a more detailed narrative about the danish district heating and attach this in Alternative Compliance.
Kind regards
Niels Varming