District heating for building applications will need integrated thermal energy storage systems in order
to be able to include more renewable energy into their operation. Thermal energy storage models are
nowadays lacking accuracy or need too much calculation time, to be able to use them for district
heating network topology optimization. They show the same deficiencies when control during
operation is considered. This project aims at developing fast and reliable models for thermal energy
storage systems and integrate them into district heating models. Secondly the project aims to
develop an heuristic topology optimization method which will allow to design quickly and reliably a
district heating network with thermal energy storage. In a final phase the thermal models will be
used to define control strategies for district heating networks by simulation in Modelica.