We are involved in DEBORAH, a Eurostars project nr E!10286,  led by EQUA Simulation AB, the vendor of the highly regarded IDA ICE building simulation software. Together with CSEM and Bengt Dahlgren AB, a Swedish consultancy firm specialised in buildings, the project’s stated objective is to optimise the design and operation of district thermal energy systems.

We held the project’s kick-off meeting on Thursday 16th June, 2016, in EQUA’s offices in Stockholm. Neurobat’s role in the project will consist in providing short- and long-term estimates of heating loads, and to extend IDA ICE with the Neurobat control algorithms.

A pilot site has been identified in Krokslätt, a district in the city of Göteborg, where heating to several buildings is provided by heat pumps combined with a system of boreholes: narrow shafts drilled through the rocky ground, where the water fed to the heat pumps have their temperature raised by the surrounding heat. Besides “pre-heating” the water, this also has the benefit of improving the heat pump’s coefficient of performance (COP). But few studies have been done regarding the optimal design (and operation) of such a system of boreholes, a negligence that this project hopes to address.

This 3-year long project is a great opportunity for us to work with some of the domain’s thought leaders, and to integrate IDA ICE in our own product development workflow.