For some years now, companies have been increasingly working on increasing their energy efficiency. There are several reasons for this: On the one hand, they reduce their electricity or gas costs when they have production, heating or cooling systems modernised. Secondly, they are committed to climate protection and are helping to reduce CO2 emissions. "Many companies want to reduce their energy consumption, but don't know how they can achieve this goal. That's why they come to us and, together with our engineers, we look for the best solutions," explains Thomas Wagner, Head of Business Customer Sales at Stadtwerke Gießen (SWG). Numerous medium-sized and large companies in particular, as well as some social organisations from the Central Hesse region, have already taken this approach - with success, as the examples of Brühlsche Universitätsdruckerei and Gießener Anzeiger show. In 2010 and 2011, both looked for ways to reduce the cost of heating energy in the building complex at Urnenfeld in Giessen-Wieseck.
Heat consumption significantly reduced
They have now had a connection to the SWG district heating network and a technically optimised heat distribution system for over a year. "The figures show that this solution leads to considerable savings. Let's take the first four months of this year as an example: from January to April, heat consumption was reduced by between 13 and 42 per cent compared to the same months in the previous year," explains Willi Schwarz, project engineer at SWG, and assures: "Our calculations took into account the weather conditions during the two years. The saving therefore has nothing to do with the fact that January 2012 was warmer than January 2011." The new system therefore achieves the targeted average saving of around 30 per cent.
Waste heat utilised in the heating circuit
One of the features of the modernised plant with district heating connection is that the waste heat from the so-called thermal post-combustion is optimally utilised. Brühlsche Druckerei uses the thermal post-combustion process to clean exhaust gases produced during the printing process. Before the conversion of the plant, this waste heat was only partially utilised in the heating circuit. "A whole lot was lost. Now Brühlsche Druckerei and Gießener Anzeiger are utilising this potential, which we identified during a thorough analysis at the start of the project, to a far greater extent," explains Willi Schwarz. He is certain: "There are opportunities like this in many companies that just need to be utilised."
15.08.2012