Hamburg nears commissioning of 80 MW wind-power-to-heat plant

Hamburg is making progress with the construction of an 80-MW power-to-heat plant which will use excess wind energy to generate district heating for thousands of households.

The shell construction work has been completed and the plant is set to come into operation for the 2022/23 heating season, Hamburg Waerme GmbH said on Tuesday. The municipal heat supplier started building the plant last September.

The investment costs for the facility and its connection to the power grid amount to about EUR 31.5 million (USD 32.27m).

The plant will use energy from offshore and onshore wind farms that cannot be fed into the grid, thus helping to integrate the excess power and avoid bottlenecks.

The system will supply district heating to about 27,000 residential units which is not only good in view of the current energy situation and the coming winter but it represents also a milestone in the energy transition, according to Hamburg's state councillor for energy and environment Michael Pollmann.

Instead of curtailing the wind energy generated in the north of the country, the surplus will be used for heating which will save up to 100,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually, Pollmann said.

(EUR 1 = USD 1.024)

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