Optimization of District Heating Systems. European Energy Exchange Price-Driven Control Strategy for Optimal Operation of Heating Plants

District heating (DH) systems are often seen as a good practical approach to meet the local heat demand of districts. Yet, under today's regulations to renovate buildings on high efficiency standards, the local heat demand is decreasing. Therefore, the operation of DH systems is also affected by the changing heat demand profile, which might lead to less profit for the operators of DH systems. Thus, the operators strive for an optimal operation at which the heat demand is met and the profits are maximized. In this work, a control strategy for optimal operation of a combined heat and power (CHP) based DH is presented. The proposed control strategy couples the operation of CHPs to the European energy exchange (EEX) price by implementing different operation constraints. This configuration is accompanied with another, which is the installation of additional storage volume. Thereby it is held to provide the optimal operation for the plant technically and economically.