Companies, Universities and NGOs are working together to green the Lombardian economy! A2A Calore e Servizi, Alfa Acciai, University of Brescia and DHPlanet have pursued the common goal of creating an innovative and efficient system for the recovery of energy from industrial thermal waste, deriving from the Alfa Acciai production site, in order to contribute to the supply of the district heating network already serving the city of Brescia.
As part of the decarbonization project of the Brescia city energy system promoted by A2A (Italian multi-utility, operating in the environment, energy, heat, grids and technologies for smart cities sectors. District heating operator), which will make the city “Carbon Free”, there are two important circular economy projects that see heat recovery as the protagonist from production plants, specifically from steel mills.
Turboden will design and install an innovative industrial heat pump (Large Heat Pump) of about 5-7 MWth at the ORI Martin steel plant, through which it will be possible to increase (with the addition of electricity) the waste heat coming from the waste thermal low temperature of the steel plant from around 70 ° C to 120 ° C, the optimum temperature to then transfer it to the A2A district heating network.
An agreement between A2A Calore & Servizi and REA DALMINE (waste to energy plant), owned by Greenthesis Group, will lead to a 50% increase in the heat available in the district heating network of the City of Bergamo.
The City of Kortrijk installed a pilot heatnet at Kortrijk Weide, as a nucleus for further extensions in the city. The feasibility to install a heatnet backbone from the waste incinerator at the outskirts of the city, along the River Leie, to the city center was researched. As many building projects are taking place along the river, this would create the opportunity to connect over 1,000 households.
Through the HeatNet NWE project, Plymouth have developed a 5th generation heating and cooling masterplan for the City Centre and Millbay areas, with a total capital value of £15-20 million.
The Aberdeen pilot project aims to lower carbon emissions and reduce fuel poverty by developing a low carbon heat network utilising waste heat from an Energy-from-Waste (EfW) Plant.
Within a privately owned residential building a variety of technologies are implemented to reduce the energy consumption. Both a solar heating system and heat pump are connected to a boiler for the heating of water. This water is used as sanitary hot water. Space heating and cooling is achieved from fan coil units (FCUs); where hot or cold water circulates inside the convectors depending on the need. Finally, underfloor heating is established through a closed water pipe system, with a heat pump as heating source. The monitoring of the entire system takes place in one control unit.
In the small Slovenian town Kuzma a district heating network is established based on biomass burning. The investments were made by a private company, with the financial support of the national government, and the aim of reducing energy prices in the area. The biomass used is collected from local wood owners in the neighbourhood and converted into heat by two biomass boilers. In combination with a 10 m3 storage tank for peak load no additional heat source is required to supply heating to 58 houses and some other residential buildings.
The biomass heating plant and district heating grid in Güttenbach (Austria) was built in 1997. The boilers are fired with wood chips from local forests. There are two boilers installed, one biomass boiler with 1 MW capacity and one oil boiler for peak load and backup with 1.3 MW capacity. The village of Güttenbach has about 900 inhabitants and an area of 16 km2. The district heating grid has a length of 12 km with about 240 connected consumers. Each year there are 5,200 MWh heat sold to the consumers.