Improvement of a district heating network through thermoeconomic approach

This paper reports a procedure to optimise district heating networks on the basis of second law analysis. The approach is derived from the exergonomic theory. A cost function has been set up and an iterative procedure was employed to determine the minimum value corresponding to the optimal pipe size and insulation thickness. Such a method was used to analyse an existing district network in Italy. The results show that significant savings could be obtained by using the proposed approach.