Green growth powered locally and innovatively

Located within easy reach of Vienna and on the shores of Lake Neusiedl, Neusiedl am See is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Burgenland – and, as a result, its gas- and biomass-fuelled heating plant now needs upgrading. 

The municipality has opted to build on its strengths, by pursuing an innovative solution based on an abundant local source of energy – wind – operated by the regional energy supplier, Energie Burgenland. The solution – due to come on-line in mid-2020 – will use electricity from a local wind park to power a clever arrangement of heat pumps, which in turn will extract heat from the air and, when demand peaks, from a biomass boiler. Use of carbon-emitting gas will be all but eliminated, and there will be no connection to the public grid. Going off-grid has required the development of sophisticated algorithms (to match supply and demand) and a clever combination of thermal and electrochemical storage systems.

In future, extra energy may be generated by using waste heat from industrial plants. This would be a novelty for Energie Burgenland.