Albertslund, Denmark

The Municipality of Albertslund

Albertslund is a municipality in Denmark, and a suburb of the city of Copenhagen. It is located 15km west of central Copenhagen and has a population of around 30,000. Albertslund is a purpose-built community, built in the 1960s and 1970s, that is known for its experimental and innovative urban planning.

The Demonstrator

The Albertslund demonstrator is owned and operated by Albertslund Kommune. The city zone to be served by the network is the Porsager housing area, which includes about 100 villas built in the late 1960’s. This housing area with residential buildings are connected to an existing high-temperature DH network (supply temperature 85°C). The villas are individually owned and therefor they have been retrofitted to very different energy classes over the years. None of the villas are low energy houses.

The overall scope of the demonstration activities in the Porsager housing area is to demonstrate moving from a high temperature (85°C) DH network supply to a low-temperature DH network (60°C) supply, with a mix of centralised and local heat production. This requires addressing some key challenges and exploiting all available opportunities. In particular, the demonstrator aims to achieve the following goals:

  • Reduce the DH supply temperature by means of shunt valves
  • Develop and install pre-fabricated skids for "critical" customers which cannot be covered by low-temperature DH by means of booster heat pumps
  • Exploit local waste heat from two supermarkets using heat pumps
  • Increase the penetration of wind electricity by means of intra-day thermal storage and heat pumps
  • Integrate a data mining and control software for operational optimization
  • Develop innovative business models for final customers