title: Investigating the interactions of decentralized and centralized wastewater heat recovery systems.
abstract: In the urban water cycle there are different sources for extracting energy. In addition to potential and chemical energy in the wastewater, thermal energy can also be recovered. Heat can be recovered from the wastewater with heat exchangers that are located decentralized and/or centralized at several locations throughout the system. It can be recovered directly at the source (e.g. in the showers and bathrooms), at building block level (e.g. warm water tanks collecting all grey water), in sewers or at the wastewater treatment plant. However, an uncoordinated installation of systems on such different levels can lead to competing technologies. To investigate these interactions, a modelling environment is set up, tested and calibrated based on continuous sewer temperature and flow measurements. With that approach different heat recovery scenarios on a household level (decentralized) and of in-sewer heat recovery (centralized) are investigated. A maximum performance drop of 40% for a centralized energy recovery system was estimated when all bathrooms are equipped with decentralized recovery systems. Therefore, the proposed modelling approach is suitable for testing different future conditions and to identify robust strategies for heat recovery systems from wastewater.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Environmental Engineering, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 13, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria E-mail: robert.sitzenfrei@uibk.ac.at.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sitzenfrei
authors.affiliation: Unit of Environmental Engineering, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 13, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria E-mail: robert.sitzenfrei@uibk.ac.at.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hillebrand
authors.affiliation: Unit of Environmental Engineering, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 13, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria E-mail: robert.sitzenfrei@uibk.ac.at.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Rauch
mesh_terms: D002138:Calibration; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006358:Hot Temperature; D012212:Rheology; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D062065:Wastewater