ENVE works in fields related to the European Green Deal, which include the environment biodiversity, circular economy, zero pollution, climate change, energy, and space policies.
The town of Meldorf plans to provide climate-friendly district heating to publicly-owned buildings, with most of their heating needs to be met using waste heat from the local printing works and biogas plant. In order to achieve a high waste heat utilisation percentage, we needed to use a geothermal energy storage system around 50 000 m 3 in size, otherwise there would, in particular, be no way of making good use of the waste heat in summer. The project is an example of how existing resources can be used to supply buildings with energy in a climate-neutral way. It is also an opportunity to test out the use of large-scale heat storage systems in the medium term, to increase the usage of solar thermal energy in northern Germany as has been done in Denmark.
To implement the project, Meldorf established a municipal company under the name of WIMeG (WärmeInfrastruktur Meldorf GmbH & Co.KG). In spite of the coronavirus outbreak, the project is currently being implemented via the German Environment Ministry's support programme for municipal pilot climate projects. The next stages will involve integrating solar thermal energy and connecting other residential and commercial buildings to the system.
The project involves an investment of around EUR 6 million, and will result in CO 2 savings of approximately 90%. Without the storage system, the savings would be only 25%.
"Heating engineers should not just be calorie catchers, but should look beyond the immediate boundaries of their field, as there may be more to be gained there than from fuel economy."
