Operational strategies for nuclear district heating systems in extremely cold climates

Amid energy transitions and rising environmental standards, nuclear energy stands out as a clean and effective heating solution in cold regions. However, Nuclear heating systems face operational challenges in extreme cold and must adapt to dynamic regional temperature changes. To ensure consistent quality and stability of heating across varying environmental temperature conditions, the heat load will unavoidably need to change in response to external meteorological conditions. Therefore, it is imperative that nuclear heating systems accurately respond to these load changes.This paper presents a simulation model of a 400MW pool-type nuclear heating reactor, and constructs a system operation simulation platform utilizing Python and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for one-dimensional and three-dimensional coupling. The analysis focuses on parameter alterations and operational schemes of the nuclear heating system within cold regions, while also investigating the implications of the thermal delay effect in the reactor pool on overall system operation.