Solar power provides climate-neutral heat

September 12, 2023
Source: Energy & Management Powernews

The project is so far unique in Germany: In Mertingen (Bavaria), a large heat pump is to be powered directly by solar electricity.

GP Joule is currently building an industrial-scale air-source heat pump in Mertingen, which draws its electricity directly from a photovoltaic park next to it and thus supplies climate-neutral heat for the community's heating network. In Mertingen, households, commercial enterprises and municipal buildings have been supplied with sustainable heat by "ProTherm" since 2016. The company was founded by GP Joule and the municipality.

So far, the heat has been provided primarily from biogas waste heat from two local production plants. Because of the expansion of the network and the associated higher heat demand, the heat pump is now added as another generation plant. In addition to solar power, it draws grid power when there is a surplus.

Two buffer tanks, each with 84,000 liters of water, are to hold the energy generated by the heat pump, from where it can be distributed to the local heating network and the connected households as needed. The control of the entire system is AI-based and takes into account the heat demand in the network, the electricity market situation and the availability of other heat sources.

"Our goal is efficient and CO2-free heat generation," Felix Schwahn, managing director of GP Joule Wärme, is quoted as saying in a company release on the project. The integration of the directly connected PV open space plant is also advantageous for the power grid that is relieved thereby. Schwahn spoke of a "lighthouse project with a blueprint effect for many other local heating networks that GP Joule is currently developing". Thus one can show from practice, which possibilities offer themselves, if one connects the sectors locally intelligently with one another.

In October the two-stage heat pump with 700 kW thermal achievement is to go into enterprise. It can provide flow temperatures of up to 80 degrees. In parallel, the expansion of the heating network is underway. In addition to the existing 750 kW photovoltaic system, three further PV projects with around 30 MW are being developed in Mertingen. The majority of the electricity is to be consumed locally - for heat generation and to supply companies.

Author: Günter Drewnitzky

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