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. Copyright (C) 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.