Thermo-economic sensitivity analysis by dynamic simulations of a small Italian solar district heating system with a seasonal borehole thermal energy storage

The simulations results have been compared with those associated to a conventional heating system in terms of primary energy consumption, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, operating costs as well as simple pay-back period in order to (i) evaluate the potential benefits, (ii) explore the influence of the components size on the system performance and (iii) establish some simple rules for the initial design of the main subsystems.