District heating supply in Winnenden
The challenge
There is a long tradition of district heating in Winnenden, Baden-Wuerttemberg: the development of the new district of Schelmenholz saw a district heating grid established in the 1960s, designed to be continually expanded.
The aim
The aim was to provide a district heating supply to the city centre and other districts, and use landfill gas from the Eichholz former domestic waste dump to produce heat.
The solution
The coal heating plant, modernised and refurbished in 1992, is now operated using natural gas, biomethane gas and light heating oil. Since 1997, the landfill gas produced by the Eichholz domestic waste dump has also been used to produce energy. In the summer of 2012, Iqony Energies expanded the existing heating plant into a combined heat and power plant. The core of this was the development of a combined heat and power (CHP) unit, which has been operated using biomethane gas since 2014. The CHP unit has an electrical and thermal output of two megawatts each. The CHP unit has significantly increased the energy efficiency of the entire plant. What began with the use of a mobile energy control centre has developed into a major district heating supply with a connected load of 47 megawatts. The company Fernwärme Winnenden GmbH & Co. KG (a joint venture by Iqony Energies GmbH and Stadtwerke Winnenden GmbH) in Winnenden has been supplying the district of Schelmenholz, the new developments of Waiblinger Berg and Lange Weiden, large portions of the city centre, and the Rems-Murr-Klinikum hospital since 2017. Annual heat production is enough to supply 3,500 single family households.