Fifth generation district heating and cooling network coupled with geothermal energy source for a sustainable community: Case study of Embassy of Sharing at Malmö

With growing urbanization and increase in energy demand for space heating and cooling in buildings, reliability, security, distribution of energy and its efficient end use is of utmost importance particularly when emissions from energy use and indoor thermal comfort of the end users is of question. Numerous solutions have been put forth in the field of effective distribution of thermal energy to meet the space heating and cooling requirements of buildings to assure indoor comfort of which fifth generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) is regarded as a viable solution in terms of low emissions, low distribution losses and effective energy supply. The challenges however lie in connecting the buildings in the network to facilitate the energy sharing between the buildings such that otherwise waste heat from one of the buildings can be used by another building connected to the same network. This paper presents the concept and design of such advanced 5GDHC network which facilitates energy sharing between connected buildings comprising of office spaces, residential complex, shopping centre and other occupying 61,901 square meters in Hyllie region of Malmö, Sweden. The system design consists of a bi-directional two pipe network with a local bore field consisting of 103 bore hole heat exchangers as the primary energy source for the network with heat pumps and dedicated direct cooling heat exchangers to alter the temperature of district heating and cooling fluid going into the buildings. The system as such is self-sufficient and requires electricity only to run the heat pumps and auxiliary control systems to meet the thermal demands of the connected buildings.