Vattenfall Europe Wärme AG
Vattenfall Wärme Berlin offers clean energy as a single package to the customer, from generation to distribution.
We identify suitable energy solutions for our customers from the housing industry, public institutions, commerce and services. Whether heating or cooling, we generate it locally.
We support Berlin in becoming climate-neutral. To this end, we are supplementing our environmentally friendly combined heat and power plants with technologies that integrate renewable energy into urban district heating, such as Power-to-Heat.
Short description of the project contribution
Vattenfall heat from wind – system integration of Power-to-District Heating
Vattenfall Wärme Berlin is investigating the integration of renewable energy surpluses into the district heating supply of up to 300,000 Berlin households using innovative demand side management and coordinated grid congestion management.
The project will research and test in practice whether and to what extent up to 30,000 Berlin households can be supplied with wind and PV surpluses from the surrounding area in the winter and up to 300,000 households in the summer by a 120 megawatt Power-to-District Heating plant in Reuter West from 2019 on. In this context, the project can also contribute to the successive replacement of fossil fuels in the domain of heat generation.
In order to meet the complexity of the application and the magnitude of the project, a three-phase procedure is planned: in 2017, 50Hertz, Stromnetz Berlin and Vattenfall Wärme Berlin developed and tested the ICT using a pilot-scale electric heater on the site of the cogeneration plant ’Mitte’. The objective: to develop and test the communication and the control of the installation independently of the restrictions of district heating hydraulics. In 2018, the Power-to-District Heating technology will be tested at the Berlin-Buch site using a Power-to-District Heating installation with a 5.0 megawatt order of magnitude at the 10 kV voltage level. The installation should ensure the coordinated operation between consortium partners 50Hertz, Stromnetz Berlin and Vattenfall Wärme Berlin to incorporate and balance ‘electricity surpluses’ from renewable energy sources. The large-scale application of Power-to-District Heating to incorporate RES surpluses is planned for 2019 at the Reuter West site. The technical concept involves the construction of a Power-to-District Heating installation with a total heat output of approx. 120 MW. This will make it the largest Power-to-District Heating installation in Germany.
The envisioned Power-to-District Heating project will make it possible for the Berlin metropolitan region to become an important location for flexibility and shiftable loads in the scope of the energy transition. Because of the connection to 50Hertz’s extra high voltage grid and the highly favourable conditions offered by the district heating hydraulics, the Berlin location is ideally suited to further the acceptance of Power-to-District Heating technology by the political world, the media and the public.