Solar power plant supplies electricity-based municipal district heating network

In the municipality of Bundorf (Germany), the symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a small solar electricity-based municipal district heating network for an initial 27 connections (up to 40 would be possible) took place on Wednesday (May 10). Cooperation partners are project company Maxsolar GmbH and the energy cooperative Inn-Salzach eG (EGIS), which has been implementing citizen energy projects for ten years and has also been active in the operation of district heating networks for three years.
In Bundorf, instead of waste heat from industrial plants or a comparable source, a 200 kilowatt (kW) heat pump is used in combination with a 400 kW electric boiler and a 75,000 liter hot water buffer tank. A 200-kW woodchip boiler serves as redundancy in winter. »Solar coverage« of heat demand is estimated at 60 percent.
Power for the district heating network comes from the Bundorf solar park, also projected by EGIS in cooperation with Maxsolar, which at 125 megawatts (MW) is the largest citizen solar project in Germany. Only a small share of 1.5 MW is earmarked for the district heating network. The costs of this, including the solar park portion, amount to € 3.6 million ($ 3.9 million).
For the Bundorf solar park, construction of which began last October, completion is planned for the middle of this year. The district heating network is scheduled to go into operation in October or November.
© PHOTON