In a district heating and cooling system, i.e. Beijing combined heating cooling and power (CHCP) system studied here, high temperature water generated by two cogeneration plants circulates through a network between the plants and heat substations. At heat substations, supply water of high temperature from the network drives absorption chillers for air-conditioning in summer and meets space heating demands in winter or domestic hot water demands by heat exchangers in the whole year. The parameters, i.e. supply/return water temperature in the network, has a great impact on primary energy consumption (PEC) of the absorption chillers, circulation pumps and domestic hot water (DHW), which is studied in this paper.