Analysis of economic efficiency of heat supply systems of city districts

Abstract

The heat supply system of a contemporary Ukrainian city provides an average consumer with a limited choice: either the centralized heating, or individual heating on the basis of gas boilers. In rare instances individual heat supply systems are additionally completed with thermal pumps. Transition from the use of a single source of thermal energy to superposition of two and more alternative sources allows to formulate and solve a problem of optimization of city districts heat supply. In this work the assessment of prime cost of thermal energy received from various sources is carried out. It is shown that individual heat supply systems under the existing wear of thermal networks can become quite competitive to the centralized heat supply systems. Meanwhile, high efficiency of the heat supply process can be provided not simply by choosing the most effective source of heat, but by choosing the source providing thermal energy with the minimum prime cost at the moment.