A Prosumer-Based Sector-Coupled District Heating and Cooling Laboratory Architecture

District heating grids worldwide are still powered predominantly by combustion of fossil fuels. In order to decarbonize them, new designs for the district heating and cooling systems are required. This paper describes the laboratory at the research center for Combined Smart Energy Systems (CoSES) at the Technical University of Munich, which can analyze new generation district heating and cooling systems, test their control designs and generate data to validate simulation models. It consists of five prosumers, equipped with heat generators and thermal storages. The emulated heat and cold consumption of each prosumer can be adjusted to the experiment requirements. All prosumers are linked with an adjustable district heating and cooling grid. A modular design of the laboratory allows it to be adapted and expanded to meet specific experimental requirements. The capabilities of the laboratory are presented in order to foster collaboration with other researchers and to serve as a template for other district heating and cooling laboratories. The experiment results presented in the paper demonstrate the functionality of the laboratory