existing equipment that has a reasonable
lifetime left; ( 2) making improvements
that are required from a safety standpoint; and ( 3) making those improvements
with short-term payoff.
One of the most beneficial actions
is to replace hydroelevators with modern
heat exchanger stations in buildings.
There are currently no controls on a
building’s indoor temperature; the hydroelevator just mixes in a certain amount of
return water to blend the district heating
supply temperature to what is supplied
to building radiators. As a result, the
supply temperature is set at the central
plant for all buildings in town, and there
are no individual building controls.
Today apartments are often overheated
for parts of the year. The only way for
tenants to adjust the temperature is by
opening their windows – something they
must do especially frequently in spring
and fall.
Once a system has been rehabilitated,
the control unit on the heat exchanger
station will adjust indoor temperature,
and the installation of heat exchangers
for heating and domestic hot water
together with modern local controls will
reduce the energy consumption. In addition, integrated networks can be operated
with a number of production plants
feeding into the same system. This could
allow whole heating plants, or parts of
them, to be closed down.
With regard to piping networks, district heating companies need to carefully
consider any plans to replace them, as
the payoff for pipe replacement is fairly
long-term.
Other rehabilitation measures that
generally pay off in the short term include
installation of SCADA (supervisory control
and data acquisition), boiler controls and
safety systems as well as installation of
variable-speed drives on pumps and fans.
Case Study: Murmansk
In the past year, TEKOS, the district
heating operator in Murmansk, began
making plans to rehabilitate its system.
The company has been supported by a
consulting team from SWECO International and COWI under the leadership
of the author and Golden Forest AB. The
planning phase of this project has been
financed by the Swedish government
through the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
With a population of 337,000
people, city of Murmansk is the administrative center of Murmansk ‘Oblast,’
Courtesy MOEEC. Photo Vadim Gloukhikh.
More than 70 percent of district heating customers in the Leninsky district of
Murmansk are apartment buildings like these. The district is served by the
Severnaya and Rosta district heating systems, which are expected to undergo
renovation in summer 2005.
which had 978,000 inhabitants in 2002.
The city’s Leninsky district, served by
the Severnaya and Rosta centralized dis-
trict heating systems, is home to about
one-third of the city’s population. In the
Severnaya and Rosta areas, heating con-
sumption is approximately 700,000
Gcal/year (812 GWh/year). The systems’
customer base con-
sists of 70.8 per-
cent apartment
buildings and 13. 7
percent industries.
The existing
district heating
operations are not
interconnected. The
Severnaya system is
an open system,
and the Rosta system is mainly a
RUSSIA in Brief
Researched by Golden Forest AB.
Land area: 1. 8 times greater than that of the United States
Population: 144 million and declining by 0.3 percent per year (2003)
Life expectancy: 62 years for men, 73 years for women
GDP: $9,700 per capita
Annual income: $2,500-$5,500, depending on geographic location
Economy: Based on natural resources – oil, natural gas, mining and timber
account for more than 80 percent of exports
Energy resources: Has world’s largest natural gas reserves, second-largest coal
reserves and eighth-largest oil reserves
Exports: Is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and second-largest oil exporter
Energy consumption: Is the world’s third-largest energy consumer
closed system, which has resulted in
water-quality problems and relatively high
energy consumption. To upgrade these
two heating systems, Igor V. Saburov, general manager of TEKOS, has outlined the
following goals:
1. Improve living conditions for people
by providing a cost-effective, reliable
heating service.
2. Increase district heating operation
efficiency.
3. Improve the domestic hot water
supply quality.
4. Reduce the environmental impact of
boiler plants.
Rehabilitation plans proposed for
the Leninsky district include installing
heat exchanger stations with modern
control equipment
in all buildings;
integrating the two
heating networks by
installing a new
500-mm (20-inch)
district heating
pipeline that will
result in a better
utilization of exist-
ing boiler capacity;
replacing some
parts of the distri-
bution piping net-
work; and installing
control equipment,
new pumps with
variable-speed con-
trol and new burners on two baseload
boilers in the Severnaya boiler plant.
The upgrade of connection points
between a district heating system and
building heating systems usually results
in considerable energy savings and operational advantages. In the Severnaya system, installing heat exchangers for local
production of hot tap water will reduce
production plant costs by eliminating heat
losses from storage tanks, less pumping
energy, etc. The installation of heat
exchangers for the radiator circuit in each
building together with new control units
with ambient air-temperature setback will
provide the major portion of the energy
savings for the project. The improvements
planned for the buildings in the two
Murmansk systems are expected to reduce
annual building energy consumption by
approximately 15 percent.
