29.04.2024
Source: Energie & Management Powernews
The municipal utility company Stadtwerke Augsburg (SWA) has concluded a contract with the plant manufacturer for the use of waste heat.
The municipal utility company Stadtwerke Augsburg (SWA) wants to use the industrial waste heat from the Rolls-Royce Solutions Augsburg GmbH plant. Gas gensets are produced there to supply electricity and heat. The heat is to be fed into SWA's district heating network from mid-2025. According to the municipal utility company, the energy from this will be enough to supply 500 households with heat.
The local supplier wants to make more use of "unavoidable industrial waste heat" for district heating. "We are in talks with numerous companies about this," said SWA Sales Manager Ulrich Längle. A concrete cooperation has now been agreed with Rolls-Royce Solutions. Stadtwerke puts the potential of industrial waste heat from companies in Augsburg at around 60 MW.
When it comes to the heat transition, Stadtwerke is relying heavily on district heating. District heating already covers around a quarter of Augsburg's heating requirements, they say. However, more than half of the heat is still generated using natural gas heating systems. The aim is to cover up to 70 percent of Augsburg's heating requirements with district and local heating by 2040.
To achieve this, Stadtwerke plans to invest over 60 million euros annually in the coming years. "The district heating network, which is currently a good 200 kilometers long, will be significantly expanded by then and new, additional generation plants and heat storage facilities will be built." In addition to industrial waste heat, the heating energy is to come from another biomass power plant, large heat pumps, heat storage facilities and waste heat from waste incineration. Demand for district heating has "exploded"
"District heating is open to all technologies," says the sales manager, describing one of the advantages of district heating. "We supply hot water to households and businesses, which can be generated in a variety of renewable ways." Today, more than 60 percent of district heating already comes from renewable generation and waste heat, such as the biomass power plant or the waste incineration plant. As the Free State of Bavaria has decided to become climate-neutral by 2040 - the federal government wants to achieve this by 2045 - Augsburg still has to keep up.
Depending on the cold in winter, SWA currently supplies its customers with up to 680 million kWh a year, which corresponds to the heating requirements of around 35,000 households. By 2040, it is expected to be almost twice as much at around 1.1 billion kWh. And the demand is there: "Since the energy crisis at the latest, the demand for district heating has really exploded."
However, the municipal utilities say that this is not enough: Even though large areas of the city will be connected to district heating in the future and building owners will be able to connect to the network, there will also be areas where district heating will not be available. "Other solutions such as heat pumps or pellet heating systems make more sense, especially in neighborhoods with mostly small-scale residential buildings," says Längle.
Author: Stefan Sagmeister
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