Johnson Controls supplying Pumps for Waste-to-District Heating system in Hamburg

May 19, 2023
The company will collaborate with water and power infrastructure utilities Hamburg Wasser and Hamburg Energiewerke. The project will supply the Dradenau site of Hamburg’s central wastewater treatment plant with the new heat pump system

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning technology and equipment firm Johnson Controls will supply the city of Hamburg, Germany with 60 MW worth of new-generation heat pumps to help the large seaside port municipality reduce the carbon footprint of its district heating systems.

Johnson Controls, a company with a long American history now merged and headquartered in Ireland, will collaborate with several German partners, including water and power infrastructure utilities Hamburg Wasser and Hamburg Energiewerke. Engineering is already under way on the project to supply the Dradenau site of Hamburg’s central wastewater treatment plant with the new heat pump system.

The plant is expected to supply the city with fossil-free heat beginning in 2025. The Johnson-installed heat pumps could save around 66,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

“The electrification of heating and cooling is a key step in the energy transition and in achieving the decarbonization goals of the Paris Climate agreement. Heat pumps play a crucial role in allowing us to harvest untapped, renewable heating resources and pave the way for a more integrated and sustainable energy system,” Tomas Brannemo, president of Johnson Controls for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

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The company will install four 15-MW heat pumps to supply more than 39,000 residential units for the Hamburg utilities. The heat pumps will extract heat from treated wastewater which leaves the treatment plant each day.

The heat then transfers into the central district heating system of Hamburg Energie’s portion of the Energiepark Hafen heating network.

"Wastewater is a valuable resource that we have been using for climate-friendly energy generation for some time and the potential of which we are continuing to exploit," said Ingo Hannemann, technical managing director and spokesman for the Management Board of Hamburg Wasser. "The residual heat in the treated wastewater is extracted by the heat pumps and fed into the district heating network as usable heat. We are pleased to be able to contribute to the Port Energy Park in this way, and as the city's solution partner, to help launch a project that will supply Hamburg with heat from renewable sources."

The heat pumps will be produced at Johnson Controls’ facility in Nantes, France, a key point of manufacturing for large-scale refrigeration and heat pump equipment in the company’s Europe, Middle East and African markets.

About the Author

Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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