EnBW launches large heat pump in Stuttgart-Münster

April 09, 2024


Source: Energie & Management Powernews

EnBW has commissioned a large heat pump with an output of 24 MW at the Stuttgart-Münster power plant site. It can heat a calculated 10,000 households in a climate-neutral way.

In Stuttgart, the supplier EnBW is increasing its climate-neutral share in the district heating network from 15 to 25 percent. With the commissioning of a large heat pump on April 8 at the Stuttgart-Münster power plant site, 10,000 households will be able to obtain climate-neutral district heating in the future. The large heat pump with an output of up to 24 MW is one of the first systems of this size in Germany. It uses the waste heat from the cooling water cycle of the neighboring residual waste incineration plant and is operated with certified green electricity from waste incineration.

This also supports the city of Stuttgart in achieving its climate protection goals, emphasized Stuttgart's mayor Peter Pätzold at the commissioning ceremony. With the climate-neutral district heating, the city can avoid around 15,000 tons of CO2 emissions. By extracting the environmental heat from the cooling water of the residual waste incineration plant, it is also possible to reduce the heat input into the Neckar river.

Funding from the federal government

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection as part of the "Real-world laboratories of the energy transition" ideas competition and is assigned to the joint research project "Large heat pumps in district heating networks - installation, operation, monitoring and system integration". Thekla Walker (Greens), Environment Minister of the state of Baden-Württemberg, emphasized the exemplary nature of the project. "This is a major step for the energy transition in the Stuttgart region and an important signal for the whole of Baden-Württemberg: climate neutrality by 2040 is achievable," said Walker.

The main challenge during the construction phase was integrating the large heat pump into the existing systems and infrastructure of the traditional Stuttgart-Münster power plant site - and this during ongoing operations. In addition to the large heat pump, a hydrogen-capable gas-fired power plant with an output of 124 MW is currently being built at the site of the residual waste cogeneration plant, which will replace the coal-fired boilers at the site in the course of 2025, explained EnBW CEO Georg Stamatelopoulos.

This means that district heating generation in Stuttgart will then be coal-free, which will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the 2030s, hydrogen is then to be used for the climate-neutral generation of electricity and heat via a further "fuel switch".

Author: Susanne Harmsen