With the help of Comsof Heat, DHC planning and design software, Rotterdam Engineering was able to deliver a comprehensive study on time and in great detail.
The challenge
“We were involved in the development of Comsof Heat from the start”, explains Pieter-Jan Dewitte, Pipeline Engineer at Rotterdam Engineering. “About one and a half years ago, Kurt Marlein and Wouter D’Hondt, Comsof Heat’s product manager and lead developer came to our office to gain insights on district heating and cooling (DHC). We discussed the development of the software and we stayed in touch. With our DHC expertise, we were a kind of test panel and had an advisory role during the development process.”
“Recently, Fluvius, a Belgian utility infrastructure company asked us to execute a feasibility study of a DHC network. The biggest challenge was the scale of this study. It’s possible for us to manually build a business case for about ten to twenty candidate consumers. But Fluvius gave us a list of about 14.000 potential consumers. For a large study like this, we needed an automated solution. We needed Comsof Heat.”
Kurt Marlein: “Rotterdam Engineering is an important player with lots of expertise in the DHC sector. So, we’re pleased they chose Comsof Heat for this feasibility study.”
“With Comsof Heat we can handle larger projects. For a case as big as Fluvius, we would have needed three months. Now we did the calculations in a few days, and with more detail.”
The solution
Pieter-Jan: “The principal added value of the software is that it’s very strong graphically. The software allows you to see the whole network, with all its components and possible users, in a GIS application and Google Earth or Google Street View. This is comfortable for us, and has a huge added value for the client, as it makes the whole network much easier to visualize.”
“Secondly, I value the software’s flexibility. If a rule needs changing, we can implement this fairly easy. For example, we decided to only connect buildings with a fixed minimal yearly energy consumption. After we selected these buildings, the software automatically changes the network topology and the diameters of the pipes. With other solutions you would have to start over. So, this makes it easy to try several scenarios and allows you to experiment with different parameters. To eventually come up with the optimal solution.”
“Lastly, I’m very happy with the support. If we have a question, Comsof’s engineers respond very quickly. We’re on the same wavelength, which eases communication.”
“With Comsof Heat we can handle larger projects”, concludes Pieter-Jan. “For a case as big as Fluvius, we would have needed three months, which would’ve been too long. Now we did the calculations in a few days, and with more detail.”
