Eco pilot project: With a “power plant” in the canal, Baden's sports hall could be heated cheaply and in an environmentally friendly manner
In order to generate eco-energy, you usually have to climb high: you can erect wind turbines, equip the roofs with photovoltaic systems or build a district heating power plant. But that takes space that is limited in urban space. “And there is no other city in Lower Austria that is as densely populated as Baden. There are almost a thousand inhabitants per square kilometer, ”emphasizes Deputy Mayor Helga Krismer (Greens). Not only because of this, the search for alternatives went underground. More precisely in the urban sewer pipes.
A study showed that the (dirty) water in Baden's main water channel has an average temperature of 16 degrees over the year. “The question arises: what to do with this warmth?” Says councilor Hans Haugeneder (Greens). The study gives an answer: the nearby sports and event hall could be supplied to a large extent via heat exchangers installed in the pipes. The annual heating costs of 110,000 euros could be reduced by up to 70,000 euros. The city of Basel in Switzerland, which supplies 60 percent of households with heat via similar systems, shows that this is not a utopia. Thanks to funding, the project could pay for itself in five to eight years. Assuming a corresponding resolution in the municipal council, one wants to start with it as early as next year.
Big potential
The power plant in the canal is just one piece of the puzzle on the way to the “Baden energy cure”. As the 285-page Energy Report 2019 shows, total consumption in public buildings and systems fell by nine percent. 96 percent of the heat comes from renewable resources (biomass district heating), ten percent is green electricity. Overall (companies, households) the energy requirement in Baden is 645 gigawatt hours, 486 of which are imported. “This amount of energy corresponds to an amount of crude oil that would fill all the pools in the lido 13 times,” says Gerfried Koch, head of the climate and energy department.
