Warta University Campus

Description of the pilot site

The pilot consists of three entities:

PUT: owner of 22 buildings located on the Warta Campus (area of 22 hectares), 175 000 m² usable area of buildings;
PSNC: operator of the Data Center and scientific offices and laboratories;
Veolia: district heating operator.

The buildings are powered by the following energy sources:

Veolia district heating network (heating);
Ground source heat pumps (heating and cooling);
Gas boilers (heating);
Electrical grid with local PV production (lighting, heating and cooling);
Excess heat transfer (heating and cooling, waterloop between two buildings in the campus);
Excess heat from the PSNC Data Centre (heating, from the data center to the PCNS building).

Pilot's goals within the RENergetic project

Warta Campus is going to be a demonstrator of the zero-energy campus. The idea is to produce in the future electricity remotely in the planned PV power plant at the PUT-owned area at Kakolewo Airfield and to consume it within the campus heating pumps with heat source utilising excess heat from PSNC data center cooling system. Then the excess heat is even transferred to Veolia district heating system. With 16 MWp PV plant the campus is going to be annually zero energy and CO₂ emission balanced.

The first proposal suggested to build a physical prototype of the system. Due to formal issues, only simulation studies of the systems are to be performed.

Main Goals:

Create assumptions for the heat recovery system based on simulation of data center exploitation;
Increase data centre energy efficiency;
Increase the share of campus RES up to 1.5MWp in PV and 2MW in GSHP in heat;
Optimise energy demand with the use of BMS/IoT technology and by involving end users in RECs;
Implementation of the Heat Demand Response between PUT and Veolia;
Development of an optimal project for transferring excess waste heat to the district heat network;
Creation of a tool to support the work of technical managers and energy decisions.

Epics to be implemented within the RENergetic project

Local Waste Heat Optimization: simulation of waste heat shows the practical possibility of using waste heat from the data center for both PUT heating and even heat transfer to the Veolia district heating network. As a result, the possibility of increasing campus energy self-sufficiency will be demonstrated. Epic shows the practical transfer of energy between PSNC, PUT and Veolia;
Heat Demand Response: demonstrates the possibility of energy storage in the structures of buildings. As a result, a decrease in the peak demand is achieved and the district heating operator is not forced to use less environmental friendly heat sources. The action will be semiautomatic (support for the technical manager in the decision-making process), due to the reluctance of stakeholders to interfere with building automation systems;
Electricity Supply Optimization: it will be useful for the energy managers to know and be able to track how much energy will the PV panels produce, in a certain period of time, as well as how much demand they will be able to satisfy. Energy managers will also be able to know how future renewable installations (including the battery energy storage system (BESS)) will affect the coverage of electricity demand by RES;
Forecasting: future heat/electricity demand and generation for other epics;
Interactive Platform: use to communicate with technical managers and make occupants aware of the current energy consumption of the building.