Cogeneration and waste heat
The Buch district heating plant uses combined heat and power (CHP) to generate electricity and heat. The fuel efficiency factor of this process is around 90%. In addition, the Buch district heating plant uses waste heat generated with landfill gas from the landfill in Schwanebeck.
Power-to-Heat
A Power-to-Heat unit with a capacity of five megawatts provides flexibility. The unit is used when there is too much renewable power, for example from wind turbines, fed into the grid. This happens with increasing frequency as the development of renewable energy sources continues. The PtH and CHP units convert this surplus electricity into heat, thereby stabilising the power grid.
Heat storage
Two large tanks store the water at a temperature of up to 95 degrees. Each unit is gigantic: each of them can hold two million litres – or around 25,000 bathtubs – of hot water.
As Buch grows, so does district heating
The district heating generated in the Buch plant, with a certified primary factor of 0.47, supplies around 10,000 homes and some 50 commercial customers, such as the Helios hospital and the Buch campus, through a local heat distribution system with a length of 25 kilometres. The system even has additional unused capacity for new residential areas that are currently developed.