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Dynamic control of district heating networks with integrated emission modelling: A dynamic knowledge graph approach

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Hofmeister, M 
Lee, KF 
Tsai, YK 
Müller, M 
Nagarajan, K 

Abstract

This paper presents a knowledge graph-based approach for the dynamic control of a district heating network with integrated emission dispersion modelling. We propose an interoperable and extensible implementation to forecast the anticipated heat demand of a municipal heating network, minimise associated total generation cost based on a previously devised methodology, and couple it with dispersion simulations for induced airborne pollutants to provide automatic insights into air quality implications of various heat sourcing strategies. We create cross-domain interoperability in the nexus of energy and air quality via newly developed ontologies and semantic software agents, which can be chained together via The World Avatar dynamic knowledge graph to resemble the behaviour of complex systems. Furthermore, we integrate the City Energy Analyst into this ecosystem to provide building-level insights into energy demand and renewable generation potential to foster strategic analyses and scenario planning. Underlying calculations use building and weather data from the knowledge graph in place of inherent assumptions in the official software release, facilitating a more data-driven approach. All use cases are implemented for a mid-size town in Germany as a proof-of-concept, and a unified visualisation interface is provided, allowing for the examination of 3D buildings alongside their corresponding energy demand and supply time series, as well as emission dispersion data. With this work, we outline the potential of Semantic Web technologies to connect digital twins for holistic energy modelling in smart cities, thereby addressing the increasing complexity of interconnected energy systems.

Description

Keywords

46 Information and Computing Sciences, 4602 Artificial Intelligence, 7 Affordable and Clean Energy, 13 Climate Action

Journal Title

Energy and AI

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2666-5468
2666-5468

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme. Part of this work was also supported by Towards Turing 2.0 under the EPSRC Grant EP/W037211/1. M. Hofmeister acknowledges financial support provided by the Cambridge Trust and CMCL. M. Kraft gratefully acknowledges the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The authors express gratitude to the Stadt Pirmasens, especially mayor Michael Maas and his team, as well as the Stadtwerke Pirmasens, with Christoph Dörr and his team, for their invaluable collaboration and generous support in sharing relevant data, enhancing the depth and quality of this research. This work also leverages data from©GeoBasis-DE/LVermGeoRP 2023. Furthermore, the authors express gratitude to L.F. Ding and G.H. Xiao for their valuable contributions, particularly in sharing the Ontop mapping and engaging in helpful discussions. The graphical abstract leverages material designed by macrovector/Freepik.