DISTRICT HEATING: A GLOBAL APPROACH TO ACHIEVE HIGH GLOBAL EFFICIENCIES

District heating networks are of great interest because of the high efficiencies which can be potentially achieved by a suitable management. However, due to system complexity, control laws are often heuristic laws and take into account only local parameters of the network, leading to suboptimal solutions when applied to the whole network. In this paper, a global approach is used. Models well suited to optimisation issues are defined to get tractable solutions for the whole problem. Simulation results are given for a district heating network benchmark designed by Electricité de France, and comprising a cogeneration system.