Affaldsvarme Aarhus

AffaldVarme Aarhus (AVA) owns and operates most of the district heating system in the city of Aarhus, Denmark. The system comprises of more than 2,000 km highly insulated main pipe and service branches, together servicing 95% of all residents in the municipality (about 340,000 people) for the purpose of space heating and on-site preparation of domestic hot water. This makes the Aarhus district heating system the second largest in Denmark.

AVA is currently in the process of installing and taking into operation sea water heat pumps at the harbor of Aarhus (1 MW installed during the summer of 2019 and 12 MW are in the planning). However, the daily operation and utilization of the flexibility potential remains a very uncertain and challenging task.

It is the ambition of AVA to have a digital twin – an online and interactive data-driven model – of the sea water heat pump to help facilitate the overview needed to manage it cost-optimally and to decide whether to increase the installed heat pump capacity for district heating production in the future.

AVA will accordingly be involved as a demonstration host and provide access to their plant, including the provision of data as well as the possibility to implement and test the developments. AVA will also contribute to the analysis of the socioeconomic benefits.