Economical heat recovery dynamic control and business model for supermarket refrigeration system coupled with district heating system

Large amounts of waste heat during the cooling process of supermarket refrigeration systems (SRS) would be released. A heat recovery strategy potentially contributes to reducing the supermarket’s heating costs related to buying heat from a district heating system (DHS). This paper explores the techno-economic feasibility of heat recovery for a real SRS integrated with a heat recovery unit (HRU) in terms of designing a dynamic heat recovery control (HRC) and business models. A cost-effective HRC is firstly developed for HRU to optimally manipulate the amount of heat recovered, thereby minimizing the real-time heat recovery cost. Furthermore, the business models of heat recovery under a long-term operation are proposed based on two transactional strategies between the SRS and DHS. A field test of the dynamic heat recovery for a remote SRS in Copenhagen Nordhavn area is conducted which demonstrates the proposed HRC algorithm can have a benefit of 0.49€ from a 3-h heat recovery operation. Moreover, the one-year operation of the SRS is also simulated which proves the developed two business models of heat recovery can achieve significant savings of 93% and 41% in energy costs. •Data-driven cost-effective heat recovery control of a real SRS.•Two heat recovery business models for SRS having an energy transaction with DHS.•Field test of a real SRS based on remote controls to validate the proposed methods.•Economical real-time heat recovery of SRS operating with a lower recovery cost.•Sharp reduction of energy cost for SRS based on the proposed business model.