The municipal heat planning (MHP) for the entire urban region of Falkenberg/Elster in the district of Elbe/Elster, which is part of the Liebenwerda municipal association and includes all its districts, has now been completed. Gundula Manigk, Head of the Public Construction Authority (left), Mayor Matthias Loske (centre) and Lena Kühnast, greenwind Project Manager and MHP expert, announce the decision of the city council. We asked some questions:

Lena, who did you work with on location?

The client was the Liebenwerda municipal association and our point of contact was the association’s building authority. We held several workshops and also a public meeting with a wide range of involved parties, and these included grid operators such as envia THERM and MITNETZ STROM, the Netzgesellschaft Berlin-Brandenburg NBB and local firms such as resintec, which is a supplier of electronic components. Local biogas plant operators, local housing cooperatives and housing associations were also involved.

What specific factors had to be taken into account?

The urban area is criss-crossed by several railway lines which strongly influenced how the area is divided and the way its potential was assessed. For example heat pipes crossing the railway tracks have to be approved by the German Railways (Deutsche Bahn). That prolongs the planning process and means that such projects are uneconomical.

Were there any challenges to cope with?

Falkenberg/Elster is a rural community, and the potential for conventional large-scale district heating networks is limited. This means the focus should be on investigating building networks and neighbourhood-level solutions in more detail. A biogas plant operator also has plans to set up a district heating network in one of the districts.

How complex was the whole process?

Our team, made up of Jacob Fengler as deputy project manager, Christopher Curran, Oliver Suthau, and myself as project manager and MHP expert, spent almost a year working on the planning, and we’ve now presented a practical concept which ranges from an analysis of the current situation to specific measures.