Vacation season notwithstanding, August brings a number of important improvements to the heatbeat Digital Twin, among them a fundamentally reworked pipe selection in the Design package, more granular management of connection capacities, updated data foundations for all heat networks, and aerial imagery as a new background map.

Flexible pipe selection, from network simulation through to cost management

The most far-reaching change to how the heatbeat Digital Twin is operated concerns pipe selection. Until now, the available options were partly restricted, both when assigning pipe types manually and during automated sizing. The rework takes effect at three points in the Design Cockpit:

• In the map view, individual pipe segments or entire routes can be selected and edited via the quick edit mode in the detail panel. Every pipe type held in the database is now available for assignment, organized by manufacturer, product series and nominal diameter.
• In the central assumptions for the project and its variants, product series from different manufacturers can be managed. This provides an overview of all pipe types used in the heat network and allows pipe costs to be maintained transparently, likewise by manufacturer, product series and nominal diameter.
• In the automated sizing, you can now decide for each run which pipe types the algorithm should draw on when determining the optimal nominal diameters.

This lets you represent heat networks the way we encounter them in our project work every day: networks originally built with pre-insulated bonded steel pipes (KMR) that are now being extended using flexible polymer media pipes (PMR). Networks that have grown historically and whose various installed pipe types need to be reflected faithfully in the digital twin. And feasibility studies, which compare different pipe types with their respective properties and costs in any case.

For early planning phases, we have prepared not only catalog data from common manufacturers but also typical KMR and PMR as manufacturer-neutral data sets. These come with the costs from the technology catalog of the German Competence Center for Municipal Heat Transition (KWW) built in, making an initial cost estimate for the heat network possible without any research of your own. As soon as more concrete figures become available, for example from initial budgetary quotes, you can enter your own cost assumptions for individual pipe types via the new cost management.

Installed, contractually agreed and calculation capacity kept cleanly apart

For sizing and simulation, the capacity drawn per building substation is one of the central parameters. In practice, however, the installed connection capacity – the rated output of the heat exchanger, for instance – often differs from the contractually agreed connection capacity. Until now, users had to decide on one of the two values.

Following feedback from several municipal utilities, both figures can now be held separately in the Digital Twin. Together with the heat load demand of the buildings and a freely configurable calculation capacity, which is allowed to deviate from actual conditions by design, this achieves two things: the current situation of buildings and their substations can be represented in a high level of detail, while simulations using divergent calculation capacities remain possible – for densification scenarios, for capacity reductions following building retrofits, or for reconciliation with the contract portfolio.

Updated data foundations for all heat networks

The cost assumptions for the manufacturer-neutral pipes already reflect this month's update to the KWW technology catalog. Beyond that, we have updated our data basis in several places:

• The waste heat data from the German Waste Heat Platform (Plattform für Abwärme) is back in line with the current status.
• We are using an improved data source for nationwide German address data.
• The georeferenced elevation data now comes from a higher-resolution source. This feeds directly into the sizing report, whose elevation profile we have also revised in terms of presentation.

Aerial imagery in the background map

You can now switch freely between background maps. Alongside the OpenStreetMap base layer and the official mapping of the German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG), the aerial imagery of the individual federal states is now available as well. Pipe routes, building stock and open spaces can therefore be checked against actual conditions on site directly in the Digital Twin, without the detour via a second map portal.

Further improvements in the heatbeat Digital Twin

In addition to the changes described above, we would like to highlight the following updates:

• Extended input options for consumption values: for both buildings and feed-in points, consumption values can now be added independently by all users even more easily, directly in the respective dashboard.
• Clearer color coding for feed-in points in the map view: to do justice to the important role feed-in points play in the heat network, they are now more clearly visible against varying backgrounds thanks to color coding in heatbeat red.
• More easily configurable categories for connection interest in further buildings: we have reworked our database model so that, on request, we can set up custom categories for connection interest for your heat network even more easily (for example "connection interest expressed", "no connection desired", and so on).

Availability

The reworked pipe selection including cost management is part of the Design package. The data updates, the extended management of connection capacities and the new background maps are available to all users of the heatbeat Digital Twin who have editing rights.

Would you like to see the new features applied to your own network? Please get in touch and arrange an appointment with us – we look forward to talking to you.