About the contents of the paper

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and become less dependent on decreasing fossil fuels, it is necessary to switch to a system of renewable energy. District heating and cooling systems are a viable solution for the supply of heat and cold in urban environments.

Renewable heat and cold sources that can be included in future urban energy systems will not produce the same high temperature yields as today's fossil fuel systems.

The 5th generation district heating and cooling (5GDHC) systems are decentralised, bi-directional and close to ground temperature networks that use direct exchange of hot and cold return flows and heat storage to balance heat demand as much as possible. 5GDHC offers a way to integrate low-temperature renewable heat sources, including shallow geothermal energy, and to reduce overall demand by recovering the heat generated from cooling and the cold generated from heating.

5GDHC's large scale allows optimal design of technical components such as heat pumps and heat storage vessels, while increasing the overall efficiency of the system by integrating a wide variety of supply and demand profiles.

The authors provide a definition for 5GDHC and show how this concept differs from conventional district heating systems. The Mine Water System in Heerlen (Netherlands) shows what a 5GDHC system at city level can look like.

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