Whois & Analysis for hoval.com

District heating (also known as heat networks or teleheating) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating and water heating.

The heat is often obtained from a cogeneration plant burning fossil fuels but increasingly also biomass, although heat-only boiler stations, geothermal heating, heat pumps and central solar heating are also used, as well as nuclear power.

District heating plants can provide higher efficiencies and better pollution control than localized boilers.

According to some research, district heating with combined heat and power (CHPDH) is the cheapest method of cutting carbon emissions, and has one of the lowest carbon footprints of all fossil generation plants.

A combination of CHP and centralized heat pumps are used in the Stockholm multi energy system.

This allows the production of heat through electricity when there is an abundance of intermittent power production and cogeneration of electric power and district heating when the availability of intermittent power production is low.

Biomass is an industry term for getting energy by burning wood, and other organic matter.

Burning biomass releases carbon emissions, around a quarter higher than burning coal, but has been classed as a "renewable" energy source in the EU and UN legal frameworks, because plants can be regrown.

It has become popular among coal power stations, which switch from coal to biomass to comply with the law.

Biomass most often refers to plants or plant-based materials that are not used for food or feed, and are specifically called lignocellulosic biomass.

As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly via combustion to produce heat, or indirectly after converting it to various forms of biofuel.

Conversion of biomass to biofuel can be achieved by different methods which are broadly classified into: thermal, chemical, and biochemical methods.

Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, containing energy originating in ancient photosynthesis.

The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years.

Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include petroleum, coal, and natural gas.

Other commonly used derivatives include kerosene and propane.

Fossil fuels range from volatile materials with low carbon:hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquids like petroleum, to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal.

Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields either alone, associated with oil, or in the form of methane clathrates.

The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, commonly known as air, that surrounds the planet Earth and is retained by Earth's gravity.

The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation).

A heat pump is a device that transfers heat energy from a source of heat to a destination called a "heat sink".

Heat pumps are designed to move thermal energy in the opposite direction of spontaneous heat transfer by absorbing heat from a cold space and releasing it to a warmer one.

A heat pump uses a small amount of external power to accomplish the work of transferring energy from the heat source to the heat sink.