5 ms·

Berlin prepares 'huge thermos' to help heat homes in winter

19 points by firstSpeaker 4y ago

anttisalmela 4y ago
Local district heating utility here in Oulu, Finland has 190000 m^3 underground heat storage capable of storing 8 GWh of heat with 40 MW of input/output capacity.
- dendrite9 4y ago
  A friend in Linkoping showed me his utility closet where they tie into the city hot water system. I was surprised, they seemed too far from the center of town. But I guess the system of insulation and buried pipes makes it reasonable. I believe they had two metered taps into the system, one for heating the home and one for their pool. I assume the metering is based on the amount of water pumped into/out of the house. Is that correct or does it work from temperature differences?
  - mwint 4y ago
    There must be two pipes, one insulated hot side, and one cold side, right? Otherwise the “used” water would cool the hot water going to the next house. Such a system would presumably be metered by volume, and it’d incentive the right behavior (extracting as much use from each gallon of water as possible).
    - dendrite9 4y ago
      That's what I was thinking. I wasn't sure about things like hot tap water for example. I'd assume the heating water is a closed/mostly closed system like a scaled up version of a radiator system in old houses.
  - anttisalmela 4y ago
    At least here billing is based on amount of energy extracted, so both volume and temperature difference are metered.
wgd 4y ago
I was wondering how exactly this hot water would be used, since in the US most hot water heating is done within a single building, but it turns out that Berlin has a large network of hot-water pipes for what is known as "district heating" [1], which as of last year served three quarters [2] of all households. [1] http://www.seon.info/2013/09/andrew-deys-berlin-blog-district-heating-in-berlin/ http://www.seon.info/2013/09/andrew-deys-berlin-blog-distric... [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/city-berlin-aims-decarbonise-district-heating-new-energy-transition-law https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/city-berlin-aims-decarb...
- theluketaylor 4y ago
  District heating can be highly effective. Common in Soviet-bloc areas, near power stations to take advantage of waste heat, and on university campuses. Downtown Toronto even has district cooling by pumping cold water from the depths of Lake Ontario and using it to cool office buildings https://www.enwave.com/case-studies/enwave-and-toronto-water-tap-into-innovative-energy-source/ https://www.enwave.com/case-studies/enwave-and-toronto-water... I'm particularly interested in thermal storage solutions since we already have the technology, it can be a lot cheaper than batteries, and use of fossil fuels for direct heating is a huge opportunity for electrification. Thermal storage can be built right now to absorb excess solar generation in cold temperatures and allow coasting through cloudy or other low generation days. I would love to dedicate some otherwise useless space in my basement to thermal storage, pumping heat in when electricity is cheap and slowly releasing it through my house to avoid using energy during peak/expensive periods.
- 1986 4y ago
  NYC has this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system
jwilk 4y ago
Archived copy without GDPR nag screen: https://web.archive.org/web/20220630181411/https://news.yahoo.com/berlin-prepares-huge-thermos-help-143214908.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220630181411/https://news.yaho...

19 points by firstSpeaker 4y ago

Local district heating utility here in Oulu, Finland has 190000 m^3 underground heat storage capable of storing 8 GWh of heat with 40 MW of input/output capacity.

dendrite9 4y ago
A friend in Linkoping showed me his utility closet where they tie into the city hot water system. I was surprised, they seemed too far from the center of town. But I guess the system of insulation and buried pipes makes it reasonable. I believe they had two metered taps into the system, one for heating the home and one for their pool. I assume the metering is based on the amount of water pumped into/out of the house. Is that correct or does it work from temperature differences?
- mwint 4y ago
  There must be two pipes, one insulated hot side, and one cold side, right? Otherwise the “used” water would cool the hot water going to the next house. Such a system would presumably be metered by volume, and it’d incentive the right behavior (extracting as much use from each gallon of water as possible).
  - dendrite9 4y ago
    That's what I was thinking. I wasn't sure about things like hot tap water for example. I'd assume the heating water is a closed/mostly closed system like a scaled up version of a radiator system in old houses.
- anttisalmela 4y ago
  At least here billing is based on amount of energy extracted, so both volume and temperature difference are metered.

wgd 4y ago

I was wondering how exactly this hot water would be used, since in the US most hot water heating is done within a single building, but it turns out that Berlin has a large network of hot-water pipes for what is known as "district heating" [1], which as of last year served three quarters [2] of all households. [1] http://www.seon.info/2013/09/andrew-deys-berlin-blog-district-heating-in-berlin/ http://www.seon.info/2013/09/andrew-deys-berlin-blog-distric... [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/city-berlin-aims-decarbonise-district-heating-new-energy-transition-law https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/city-berlin-aims-decarb...

theluketaylor 4y ago
District heating can be highly effective. Common in Soviet-bloc areas, near power stations to take advantage of waste heat, and on university campuses. Downtown Toronto even has district cooling by pumping cold water from the depths of Lake Ontario and using it to cool office buildings https://www.enwave.com/case-studies/enwave-and-toronto-water-tap-into-innovative-energy-source/ https://www.enwave.com/case-studies/enwave-and-toronto-water... I'm particularly interested in thermal storage solutions since we already have the technology, it can be a lot cheaper than batteries, and use of fossil fuels for direct heating is a huge opportunity for electrification. Thermal storage can be built right now to absorb excess solar generation in cold temperatures and allow coasting through cloudy or other low generation days. I would love to dedicate some otherwise useless space in my basement to thermal storage, pumping heat in when electricity is cheap and slowly releasing it through my house to avoid using energy during peak/expensive periods.
1986 4y ago
NYC has this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

jwilk 4y ago

Archived copy without GDPR nag screen: https://web.archive.org/web/20220630181411/https://news.yahoo.com/berlin-prepares-huge-thermos-help-143214908.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220630181411/https://news.yaho...