Córdoba

New District Heating and Cooling Network

Climate zone:

Southern European Weather

The district heating and cooling network in Córdoba (Spain) covers a building at the University of Córdoba. 

Spain is one of the most attractive countries in Europe for developing solar energy due to the amount of sunlight available. The direct normal irradiation in the middle pf spain is around 1980 kWh/m2 year, which makes the concentrated solar technology a promising solution to cover the heating demand of buildings, as well as the cooling demand through absorption chillers.

Furthermore, due to availability of local biomass sources, biomass boilers will become part of the technological design.

Technologies planned for Córdoba demo site:

Concentration Solar Collectors

3 fields with 3 different technologies:

  • Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC; 184 kWth),
  • Linear Fresnel Collector (240 kWth)
  • WeSSun, Tracking Concentrator with Fixed Tilt Collector (85 kWt)

Cooling from renewable energy sources

  • Renawable air cooling unit (RACU; ~ 18 kW) 
  • Advanced absorption chiller (40 kW) for District Cooling supply.
  • Conventional absorption chiller (~ 400 kW) for remaining cooling needs for the district cooling.

Thermal energy storage

1 thermal energy storage tank (~50 m3) 

High efficiency low emissions biomass boiler

2 biomass boilers (each 500 kW) with e-filters for reducing air pollutants.

Luleå

Excess heat integration in existing District Heating

Bucharest

Retrofitting of an Inefficient District Heating Section