IDEA to Action is one of AEE INTEC‘s guiding principles. This was once again impressively demonstrated yesterday (7 October 2021) at our ThermaFLEX demo in Leibnitz. The city of Leibnitz, its heating network operator and the people responsible for the project were invited to the presentation of the Bidirectional Transfer station.

The two heating networks of the energy suppliers Nahwärme Tillmitsch and Bioenergie Leibnitzerfeld flow together in this transfer station. The possibility of exchanging heat reciprocally between the grids ensures an efficient and resource-saving supply. The transfer station offers a transmission capacity of 4 megawatts. The mutual exchange of heat reduces CO2 emissions and saves operating costs.

The process is supported by an intelligent control system that optimises the heat exchange.BEST – Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies GmbH and Schneid GmbH (https://schneid.at/), are responsible for the control system and are observing the progress and effects of the energy management system in a 1-year test phase.

The transfer station has now been in operation for six months and the project team can look back on a successful first test phase. According to Daniel Muschick, the consumption and yield forecasts enabled a targeted transfer of heat, so that the use of gas boilers could be reduced without reducing the yield from waste heat due to excessively high buffer temperatures. Even in summer, maintenance work on the biomass boilers could be carried out in peace, as the customers were reliably supplied by deliveries from the south.

Mayor Helmut Leitenberger and Astrid Holler see the commissioning of the transfer station as another important step towards an innovative and intelligent energy supply for Leibnitz. Another important building block for the successful heat transition in Leibnitz is user and stakeholder integration, explains Isabella Weichselbraun from Stadtlabor (https://lnkd.in/d6exb49s). Citizens, potential and existing customers are intensively involved in order to leverage existing potential for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Wolfgang Horn agrees that this is the only way to ensure energy-efficient urban development with the integration of local energy potentials.

Current articles: https://lnkd.in/dzCNwfvx, https://lnkd.in/dtRjzQSJ & https://lnkd.in/gHR9-yHY.

Thanks to ALL those involved: Astrid Holler, Helmut Leitenberger, Daniel Muschick, Wolfgang Rosegger, Markus Haselbacher, Jürgen Burchgraber, Jakob Binder, Wolfgang Horn and funding partners: Klima- und Energiefonds, Forschungsinitiative Green Energy Lab, FFG Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft mbH, Kommunalkredit Public Consulting GmbH