Exergoeconomic evaluation on the optimum heating circuit system of Simav geothermal district heating system

Simav is one of the most important 15 geothermal areas in Turkey. It has several geothermal resources with the mass flow rate ranging from 35 to 72 kg/s and temperature from 88 to 148 °C. Hence, these geothermal resources are available to use for several purposes, such as electricity generation, district heating, greenhouse heating, and balneological purposes. In Simav, the 5000 residences are heated by a district heating system in which these geothermal resources are used. Beside this, a greenhouse area of 225,000 m² is also heated by geothermal. In this study, the working conditions of the Simav geothermal district heating system have been optimized. In this paper, the main characteristics of the system have been presented and the impact of the parameters of heating circuit on the system are investigated by the means of energy, exergy, and life cycle cost (LCC) concepts. As a result, the optimum heating circuit has been determined as 60/49 °C.