Mobile STEAG technology helping to supply district heating in Neu-Ulm
Ulm/Saarbrücken/Essen. SWU Energie GmbH, Ulm’s municipal utility company, is renewing the generation facilities in its district heating network. For the duration of the construction work on a central CHP plant, three mobile energy units with around 24 megawatts of generating capacity are helping out. The units from Saarbrücken-based STEAG New Energies (SNE) are bolstering the continuous supply of district heating at peak load times during the alteration work in Neu-Ulm.
“The three mobile energy units we are deploying are high-pressure hot water systems with a maximum pressure of 16 bar. They can heat the district heating water to up to 160 degrees Celsius," says Stefan Gouverneur, coordinator of Mobile Energy Supplies and Heat Supplies South at SNE. Two of the mobile energy units have a generating capacity of 9.4 megawatts (MW) each, while the third generates 5 megawatts.
“With these units, we are ensuring that even during the cold season, nobody will have to freeze in Neu-Ulm," Stefan Gouverneur emphasizes, going on to add more technical details: “To guarantee the required district heating network performance, we provide one circulating pump per system, which transports the hot water into the pipes, enabling it to then reach the district heating customers’ radiators."
Satisfied municipal utilities
“We had additional requirements that the rented installations needed to meet,” says Klaus Eder, Managing Director of SWU Stadtwerke Ulm/Neu-Ulm GmbH. “Besides the integrated pumping capacity, the facilities also had to be particularly quiet and low in emissions, as they are located in residential areas in the middle of the town. I am glad that in STEAG we have found a partner who was able to offer us precisely this level of security of supply and service quality.”
STEAG, too, is satisfied: “The solution we have found here once again demonstrates STEAG's diverse technical and energy-related expertise in planning and implementing solutions for complex customer requirements in the energy sector,” remarks Thomas Billotet, SNE management spokesman. “It’s not without reason that our motto is: ‘Securing energy supply. Now and in the future.’”
Extensive range of facilities for a variety of customer requirements
In total, SNE, a subsidiary of the Essen-based energy company STEAG GmbH, has more than 40 mobile energy units in its portfolio. These include low pressure hot water, high pressure hot water and steam generation units with generating capacities from 2 to 9.4 MW and 1 to 14 metric tons of steam generation per hour.
All units consist of boiler, firing system, water treatment modules, circulating pumps and pressurizer systems. They can be fueled with both oil and natural gas and are used by industrial customers and district heating suppliers alike. In most cases, they are only deployed temporarily: for developing new service areas, during lengthier and larger-scale incidents, for backing up peak loads – or, as in this case, during alterations or repairs to existing heating networks. "In principle, though, the units can also be rented for longer periods of more than one year,” Stefan Gouverneur points out.
