Can a large-scale heat pump keep Berlin sustainably warm?

The demonstration project will use waste heat from a cooling plant to generate green district heating

Siemens Energy and Vattenfall Wärme Berlin AG have partnered to build a large-scale high-temperature heat pump that will generate green district heating in Berlin.

The technology will generate heat from waste heat and renewable electricity and feed it into the city’s district heating network.

Siemens Energy will provide a high-temperature heat pump with a thermal capacity of up to 8MW that will be deployed to a Vattenfall‘s plant which supplies around 12,000 offices, 1,000 apartments and institutions with cooling generating unused waste heat.

The heat pump is designed to use that heat and it is aimed to provide Berlin urban district with green heat.

Tanja Wielgoß, Chief Executive Officer of Vattenfall Wärme Berlin AG, said: “If we want to achieve the energy turnaround in cities and increasingly switch to renewable potentials, we have to consider heating, cooling and power supply as an integrated part.

“This is the only way we can make the best possible use of the available resources.”

Jochen Eickholt, Member of the Board of Management of Siemens Energy, commented: “The decarbonisation of the heat supply is a key requirement for the successful implementation of the goals in the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Large heat pumps can play an important role in the medium and long-term conversion of the heat supply.

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