- We are in the process of building the pipe, and we only need to get one kilometer laid between the pump station in Rise at Rødekro and the other out at Kassø, says managing director at Aabenraa Fjernvarme Tommy Palmholt.
The district heating plant will be the first in Denmark to take excess heat from a PtX plant when European Energy's Kassø PtX starts its methanol production.
The approximately five km long pipeline from Kassø to Rise will supply the district heating customers in Rødekro with the green surplus heat from the PtX plant, which is powered by renewable energy from the 340-hectare solar park at Kassø.
The start-up of the PtX plant will take place around the summer holidays this year, and it fits well with the high season in the district heating world.
- The expectation is that we will have a reasonable flow this coming autumn, says Tommy Palmholt.
"Come inside"
There has been a lot of talk about sector coupling in recent years, but the visions have often ended up like birds on the roof when the projects have either not been implemented, or are left to wait. But in the case of Aabenraa District Heating and European Energy, things have gone completely differently.
- European Energy knocked on the door and asked if we were interested in excess heat, and I said: 'Come in', Tommy Palmholt tells of the beginning of an unusually good collaboration and elaborates:
- It's gone fantastically well, I'm getting soft in the knees over it, it's gone so well. This has also been the case with the various administrations in the municipality that have been involved. We have many, many more problems with gas conversions.
The good cooperation between the district heating company and the energy company has also resulted in a flexible agreement.
- We have made an agreement based on mutual trust, and that is why it has gone so fantastically well. We have laid a pipe with a greater capacity than the 50,000 MW hours per year that our agreement is, says Tommy Palmholt.
The parties' agreement is also such that settlement will take place with meters. The price for the surplus heat is even below what the otherwise cheap biofuel can be obtained for.
- The agreement is DKK 150 per person. MW, and it is below our production price with wood chips and straw, which is NOK 192 per MW, the director explains about a price that is, however, tied to investments:
- But there are investments for the pipe laying and the two pumping stations. And we have bought a plot of land from European Energy in Kassø, where one of the pumping stations will be located. The piping had to cross the railway, and that alone cost DKK 4 million. DKK.
Less burning in the future
For Aabenraa Fjernvarme, which has 10,000 customers in Aabenraa Municipality, the first step is a restructuring of the company's heat sources. The director already sees a development today that points away from burning as a heat source.
- We have two fantastic plants burning wood chips at the plant in Egelund and straw in Stubbæk, says Tommy Palmholt about the relatively new plants from 2012 and 2014, which have helped ensure district heating customers low prices of approximately DKK 10,000. for an average home.
But the political currents point, as with the cars, away from combustion, and there is a strong consumer desire to get away from combustion as a heat source. Even if it is biomass such as wood chips and straw rather than gas, oil or other fossil fuel.
- We feel that the customers bristle against wood chips, as they did with the gas. They think and write directly that the trees must remain standing. And they write when trees are cut down in Aabenraa, even though we have nothing to do with it. This is the new coal, says Tommy Palmholt.
In addition to the excess heat from Kassø PtX, Aabenraa Fjernvarme is in full swing with another waste water plant from the households.
- We are in the process of having four waste water heat pumps of one MW each produced in Finland, and we expect to be able to start with that plant in the autumn, says Tommy Palmholt.
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