Fabian Ochs of the University of Innsbruck of the Austrian team in the Annex 61 presented an Annex 61 contribution on simplified modelling of districts. The simplified modelling has been developed to access archetypes of Positive Energy Districts (PED) regarding the positive energy balance or a gap to reach a positive balance, respectively.
The archetype PED combine different building types like single family, small and large multi-family as well as non residential buildings with office and hotel use. It is found that with improving efficiency of buildings, heat pumps (HP) and PV, a net positive energy balance is already possible for new build single famjly and small multi-family buildings, in existing districts and in high-density districts (such as multi-story apartment of office buildings), however, reaching a positive energy balance is very challenging. However, the derived characteristic curves on loads and renewable energy potential of the district can support the system layout in an early design phase.
The contribution has also been invited to be included as longer article in the Journal “Solar Energy Advances”. Therefore, the simplified modelling and the generated load characteristics have been applied to address the so-called “winter gap”, i.e. the mismatch between energy demand in winter and renewable energy generation in summer, and need for seasonal storage options in order to derive a more balanced energy system. The load generator is calibrated with monitoring data of the “Campagne district”, a district of the first 4 high rise building supplied with ground water source heat pump, which is in operation since the end of 2022. The total project comprises 4 blocks of each 4 buildings, which are currently built. Result of the simulations confirm, that all performance potentials on the building envelope side and high efficiency of the heat pump are a prerequisite and an efficient strategy to address the winter gap and limit required seasonal storage capacities. The article is currently in the review process.