Aalborg University student wins DHC+ award
Susana Paardekooper, student at the Sustainable Cities Master’s program at Aalborg University, Copenhagen, has won the DHC+ Student Award with her project “Optimal Heat Pump Use in European Cities”. Her main finding was that in dense urban areas, individual heat pump application and a gas-based system are more expensive than implementing a district heating system and using large scale heat pumps to fuel it.
The 24-year old student concludes that large scale heat pumps, combined with district heating, are the cheapest way to achieve energy efficiency and decarbonisation in cities. The heat pumps in the district heating system also provide an opportunity to integrate intermittent renewable energy into the system.
- I think it shows that it is necessary to think differently about energy in cities, and really understand the opportunities and limitations that the urban environment poses. I also think it's interesting to see the way different technologies interact within the system, and how the scale of the technology impacts its contribution and effect on other parts of the system, says Susana Paardekooper.
Outstanding contribution
The DHC+ Student Award goes to an “outstanding contribution to the development, growth and improved efficiency of District Heating and Cooling on a local, national or international level” and will be presented at the International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and 4th Generation District Heating in Copenhagen this August.
The competition winners were selected by a high-level jury composed of eight international DHC experts including university professors and industry representatives, and the runners-up are Wiet Mazairac from Eindhoven University of Technology, Holland, with the project “Integrated modelling and simulation of electricity, gas and heat networks underlying a sustainable city infrastructure” and Spyridon Provatas from Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, with “An online machine learning algorithm for heat load forecasting in District Heating systems”.
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