Publication · Peer-reviewed conference paper, BauSim 2026, Zürich
Assessing CHP Systems for Primary Energy Efficiency, CO₂ Emissions and Grid Support
With colleagues at INATECH and Fraunhofer ISE, I co-authored this paper on combined heat and power (CHP) for the Smart District Karlsruhe-Durlach, a group of five multi-family buildings with minute-level monitoring data for 2024. We simulated five supply systems hour by hour (a gas boiler reference, micro gas turbine and gas-engine CHP, each with and without a heat pump, all with PV) at three German locations: Karlsruhe, Hamburg and Leipzig.
The CO₂ benefit of CHP depends on the local grid far more than on the technology: the same micro gas turbine cut emissions by 32.8% in coal-heavy Leipzig but raised them by 8.7% in Karlsruhe. Adding a heat pump reduced emissions everywhere, by up to 50% in Leipzig. The EU Ecodesign primary-energy metric misses these location effects, so we argue for location-sensitive CHP assessment.
- Authors
- M. Kropp, S. Pathak, S. Naderi, G. Füldner, A. Velte-Schäfer
- Published in
- Proceedings of BauSim 2026 (IBPSA-Germany, Austria and Switzerland), pp. 265–272
- Methods
- Hourly dispatch simulation, CO₂ and primary-energy assessment, grid support coefficients
- Tools
- Python, EHDO
