An innovative solar system to be installed in Spain

The solar collectors from Inaventa Solar will deliver energy for heating and domestic hot water to a building complex in Spain, owned by the Basque Government. This campus area is defined as a demonstration site within the Horizon 2020 project RELaTED, where the possibilities of ultra-low temperature district heating systems are tested in a set of corporate building complexes.

This article comes from the RELaTED website and was previously published on Inaventa Solar website.

A new solar system is on its way from the factory of the Norwegian manufacturer of solar collectors  Inaventa Solar at Jevnaker to Iurreta in the Basque Country. The solar collectors will be installed as a building-integrated solution in one of the south-facing facades of a larger building complex. The solar collectors will deliver energy for heating and domestic hot water preparation to the building itself, while also providing surplus heat to a low-temperature district heating network.

The Iurreta site is a campus comprised of 13 multi-rise buildings with different architectonic designs and use profiles. The complex hosts several of the Basque Country regional police (Ertzaintza)´s emergency, rescue and rapid intervention units. Most of the buildings are dedicated to administrative purposes, but there are also spaces for residential use, sports facilities, warehouses and a public swimming pool.

Conversion of the district heating network of Iurreta into an ultra-low temperature system

All buildings in the campus area receive their heating services from a district heating network. The heat is produced by two condensing boilers with a total capacity of 650 kilowatts and the network is originally designed for an operational temperature of 80 degrees. A part of the network is now transformed into an ultra-low temperature network. The reduction of supply-line temperature guarantees the incorporation of low-energy heat sources such as our solar heating system with minimal constraints.

The building complex is defined as a demonstration site within the Horizon 2020 project RELaTED, where the main focus is innovative solutions for heat delivery from renewable energy sources and technologies into low-temperature district heating networks. The RELaTED approach follows the strategy of the electrical smart grids, in which energy generation is decentralized and consumers evolve to prosumers (they both consume and produce energy). At this specific site, the RELaTED project team is also testing the possibilities of ultra-low temperature district heating systems in corporate building complexes.

The RELaTED approach follows the strategy of the electrical smart grids, in which energy generation is decentralized and consumers evolve to prosumers (they both consume and produce energy)

Reduced energy bill and lower CO2 emissions

The new ultra-low temperature network will help raise the efficiency of the existing heat plant by reducing the water production temperature in one of the boilers, and in turn also distribution heat losses. These improvements, along with the incorporation of solar heating as an energy source and the prospect of using the reject heat from cooling equipment, will lower the energy bill and the CO2 emissions of the building complex.

New possibilities for ULTDH in corporate district heating networks

Olga Macias, a researcher in the field of energy efficiency in buildings in Tecnalia, explains the intervention developed by the RELaTED project in the demonstration site of Iurreta (Spain), to test the possibilities of the ultra-low temperature district heating systems in a corporate building complex.