Techno-economic model for district heating systems

•District heating system techno-economic model is developed.•Effective parameters on district heating systems can be determined.•Proposed model provides a fast and an easy evaluation of district heating systems.•It gives useful results before detailed project planning.

District heating (DH) systems, which serve as comfortable, safe and economical heating, have been in use around the world for many years. The DH system feasibility studies require detailed analyses and simulations. In this paper, the DH system techno-economic model, developed for the determination of the effective parameters on DH systems is presented. The model uses basic parameters regarding the region such as area, numbers of buildings and dwellings, the total heat energy need and the peak heat load. It provides a fast and easy evaluation method and gives useful results before the detailed project planning of DH system investment. Moreover, the results of the model are useful both in order to understand the DH systems economically and in order to investigate the effective parameters on cost of DH.