The impact of small scale cogeneration on the gas demand at distribution level

• Impact on the gas network of a massive implementation of cogeneration.
• Distributed energy resources in a smart grid environment.
• Optimisation of cogeneration scheduling.

Smart grids are often regarded as an important step towards the future energy system. Combined heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration has several advantages in the context of the smart grid, which include the efficient use of primary energy and the reduction of electrical losses through transmission. However, the role of the gas network is often overlooked in this context. Therefore, this work presents an analysis of the impact of a massive implementation of small scale (micro) cogeneration units on the gas demand at distribution level. This work shows that using generic information in the simulations overestimates the impact of CHP. Furthermore, the importance of the thermal storage tank capacity on the impact on the gas demand is shown. Larger storage tanks lead to lower gas demand peaks and hence a lower impact on the gas distribution network. It is also shown that the use of an economically led controller leads to similar results compared to classical heat led control. Finally, it results that a low sell back tariff for electricity increases the impact of cogeneration on the gas demand peak.