Technical Integration

Smart thermal grid at TU Delft

TU Delft’s campus heating network is connected to 23 buildings and used as a ‘living lab’ to demonstrate the transition of a conventional district heating grid towards a renewables-driven fourth-generation district heating network. The first step involves an anticipative and peak-shaving control strategy to minimise the supply temperature, which is necessary to integrate a future geothermal source into the network. This first step already showed a 20% reduction of natural gas consumption without having to make any large-scale modifications to buildings or heat sources.

Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage Smart Grids (ATES-SG)

ATES-SG+

An energy-neutral office through the Internet of Things

An office building in Rijswijk is used as a test environment to demonstrate how an energy-neutral office can be achieved through using the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart controls. TU Delft has been working on how to use the data collected by the IoT platform to design self-learning controls that reduce energy consumption and increase comfort. The Dutch Government Real Estate Agency (Rijksvastgoedbedrijf) has established the test environment in Rijswijk as one of the initiatives in the Green Technologies 3.0 programme.

Smart-meter data for automated energy and comfort diagnosis in homes

Smart-meter data at several aggregation levels (place and time) support the development of better prediction models for energy consumption in dwellings. With these models, based on actual energy use and behaviour, much more accurate energy savings potentials can be determined at the house, block or neighbourhood levels. Thermal sensation data and diverse physical parameters are gathered in real time in order to learn about the occupant’s wishes and behaviour. TU Delft explores this topic in various projects with multiple industry partners.