If enough households express an interest in sustainable heat supply, the project can be implemented.

03/16/2023

Source: Energy & Management Powernews

The project developer GP Joule wants to tackle a renewable heat supply in Scheuring, Upper Bavaria. The concession contract is already signed.

In an affordable, price-stable and renewable local heating network Scheuring has "great interest" - of which the mayor of the municipality in the district of Landsberg am Lech south of Augsburg, Konrad Maisterl (Free Voters), is certain. Together with Felix Schwahn, the managing director of GP Joule Wärme, he has put his signature to a concession agreement for the planning of a local heating network in his community of 1,800 inhabitants.

The permit agreement gives GP Joule permission from the municipality to lay and run pipes on municipal property. How great the interest actually is is to be shown in the context of an acquisition, with which GP Joule wants to start in April.

Mayor Maisterl is confident in view of the implementation of the project: elementary school, fire station, kindergarten and community hall needed a new heating system in the foreseeable future. If enough households now express their interest in the sustainable heat supply, the project can be implemented. Construction could then begin in mid-2024, the partners wrote in a joint statement. With the "Renergiewerke Scheuring GmbH" GP Joule has already founded an operating company, in which the community can also participate.

The partners strive for a solution with "the greatest possible independence from fossil fuels", as it is further said. A large heat pump is to handle the base load of the heating network. It is to be operated with electricity from a 5-MW photovoltaic park in the municipal area. For peak load times a wood chip heating is to be available, which is supplied with wood chips from the municipality.

A 2.5-kilometer pipeline is to be laid from the municipal properties to be supplied, which can connect a planned construction area to the renewable local heating. Commenting on the cooperation with GP Joule, which has one of its two headquarters in Buttenwiesen (Dillingen district), some 70 kilometers away, Mayor Maisterl says: "We want a partner from the region who has a lot of experience in the field of renewable energies and who is within reach when needed."

About 650 employees now work for the medium-sized GP Joule group of companies, which also has a headquarters in Reußenköge, North Frisia. The founders, Ove Petersen and Heinrich Gärtner, have set their sights on decarbonizing the energy and transport sectors. GP Joule produces and markets wind and solar power as well as hydrogen generated from renewable sources.

Author: Davina Spohn