An Automated Framework to Select the Most Profitable Consumers for District Heating Network Connections

11th International Conference on Smart Energy Systems 16-17 September 2025 #SESAAU2025 Sponsored by An Automated Framework to Select the Most Profitable Consumers for District Heating Network Connections Hasibuzzaman Mahmud a,b,c Martin Sollich b,c Farzaneh Karami a,c Robbe Salenbien a,c Maarten Blommaert b,c a Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium b Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 300 box 2421, 3001 Leuven, Belgium c EnergyVille, Thor Park, Poort Genk 8310, 3600 Genk, Belgium Research Context 2 Business case for Heating network producer, operator and consumer Consumer 1 (100m) Consumer 2 (200m) Consumer 3 (400m) Consumer 4 (800m) Consumer 5 (1600m) Idealistic radial case The same heat demand of 50kW Producer and operator: Profit - Consumers: Cost - Leuven, Belgium Would it make sense to connect the furthest consumer? Case Study 3 Business case : Maximize NPV Consumer 1 Consumer 2 Consumer 3 Consumer 4 Consumer 5 Idealistic Radial case Global Optimum Consumer Connection Optimization 4 Consumer 1 Consumer 2 Consumer 3 Consumer 4 Consumer 5 Idealistic radial case Simple Small-scale case District-level case Cost Function = ( Pipe +Producer + Pump + Substation ) CAPEX + (Producer + Pump) OPEX - Revenue Full Mixed Integer Non-Linear Formulation 5 PATHOPT - an optimization toolbox for thermal networks Accurate, Fast, and Scalable Planning tool and digital twin Comparison with Other Tools 6 Credit : Martin Sollich Open science (7+ journal publications) 7 Consumer Connection Optimization Cost Function Modification: Y. Wack, M. Baelmans, R. Salenbien, and M. Blommaert, “Economic topology optimization of District Heating Networks using a pipe penalization approach,” Energy, vol. 264, Feb. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2022.126161. Continuous Optimization 8 Preliminary Results Individual Consumer Value of the χ after optimization Consumer 1 0.70 Consumer 2 0.69 Consumer 3 0.68 Consumer 4 0.04 Consumer 5 0.02 Ranking Consumer 1 (100m) Consumer 2 (200m) Consumer 3 (400m) Consumer 4 (800m) Idealistic radial case The same heat demand of 50kW Consumer 5 (1600m) Discrete Optimization 9 Tanh-based Interpolation Function Consumer 1 (100m) Consumer 2 (200m) Consumer 3 (400m) Consumer 4 (800m) Consumer 5 (1600m)