Solar and Heat Recovery Assisted District Heating System Design for The “Sharif University of Technology” Campus

The demand for sustainable energy use has been growing exponentially since the last decade; also, the need to go clean and reduce greenhousegas emissions has become a common goal since the Paris agreement in 2016, in which Iran agreed to reduce 4% of its overall carbon-dioxideemission by 2030. The campus of Sharif University, located in one of the most air-polluted districts of Tehran, emits more than 600 tons ofCO2 and combustion gasses for its heating demand annually, thus making it a proper choice for using district heating systems assisted bysolar energy to attain more efficiency and environmental advantages. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the advantages of replacing thecurrent conventional system by a solar thermal and heat recovery assisted district heating system. The outcome acquired from theresearch reveals that 22.95% energy conservation and 120 ton CO2 emission reduction is achieved by installing a heat recovery system and450m2 of flat-plate solar collectors. Additionally the introduced system relies only on electricity as an external source of energy which isconsidered totally Carbon-free to provide heat for the campus buildings, preventing 520 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphereannually when replaced by the current fossil fuel burning system.

Keywords:

Sustainable energy systems , heat pump , solar-assisted systems , heat recovery , district heating