Industrial waste heat to district heating: government backs Leipzig project
Waste heat that was previously not used in a TotalEnergies refinery is to be used to heat Leipzig households.
The refinery in Leuna produces diesel, heating oil, bitumen, kerosene and petrol from crude oil.
(Image: TotalEnergies)
Previously unused waste heat from the TotalEnergies refinery in Leuna near Leipzig is to be used for district heating in future. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK) is supporting what it describes as a lighthouse project there, which will use the waste heat from the refinery to generate hot water for the Leipzig district heating network instead of releasing it into the atmosphere as has been the case to date. This could be used to heat 100,000 homes, according to a BMWK press release on Monday.
Four years ago, the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research calculated that the waste heat from energy-intensive industrial sites in Germany from the chemical, iron and steel, cement, glass, paper and refinery sectors offers a potential of 29 petajoules, most of which remains unused. This corresponds to the needs of more than half a million households. Among other things, industrial waste heat could be used to replace the coal and gas-fired power plants typically used for district heating.
In Leipzig, industrially generated heat is to replace the heat currently fed into the district heating network from the Lippendorf lignite-fired power plant. Stadtwerke Leipzig is receiving 70 million euros from the BMWK for the expansion of the heat pipeline by 19 km from Leuna to Leipzig from the "Federal Funding for Efficient Heating Networks" (BEW). The extraction of waste heat in Leuna is being funded with 27 million euros via the "Federal Funding for Energy and Resource Efficiency in the Economy" (EEW) program, while Total Energies plans to invest 68 million euros.
Previously unusable waste heat
TotalEnergies already uses the heat generated at its refinery in Leuna to produce process steam, for example. In order to store the intermediate and end products produced in the refinery in tanks and deliver them later, they have to be cooled to temperatures of below 40 °C. The unavoidable waste heat generated in this process is used to produce steam. TotalEnergies explains that the unavoidable waste heat generated in this process cannot currently be used efficiently in the refinery. The company plans to replace the air coolers in the refinery plants with water coolers and feed the heated water into a water circuit.
This part of the project is to be implemented from next year and is scheduled for completion in 2028. Stadtwerke Leipzig has been investigating the heat potential since 2017 and has determined a year-round capacity of 83 MW at district heating temperature level. In summer 2021, Stadtwerke signed a cooperation agreement with TotalEnergies.
Another example of the use of industrial waste heat for district heating is a project in Hamburg that is already further advanced. For the coming heating period, waste heat from copper manufacturer Aurubis is to be fed into Hamburg's 860-kilometre network and supply around 20,000 households with district heating.
(anw)