Enbw Commissions Hydrogen-Ready Gas Plant In Stuttgart

EnBW has commissioned one of Germany’s first hydrogen-ready gas turbine power plants at its Stuttgart-Münster waste incineration site.

Together with the Stuttgart-Gaisburg and Altbach/Deizisau CHP plants, the Stuttgart-Münster combined heat and power (CHP) plant supplies heat to over 28,500 homes, 1,400 businesses and 380 public facilities in and around Stuttgart.

The existing CHP plant comprises a hard coal-fired power plant with three coal-fired boilers, a waste incineration plant with three waste-fired boilers, and three steam turbines.

Until now, the coal-fired boilers have supplied additional heat when the waste incineration plant does not produce enough for the district heating network in winter.

Have you read?Doosan Škoda Power to supply turbine for waste-to-energy plant in RéunionPoland’s TAURON Group begins greening work across heating networks

However, after approximately three years, the Stuttgart-Münster site has now been modernised with the construction of a new gas turbine plant that will supply the city of Stuttgart with 12MW of electrical energy and 370MW of thermal energy.

Siemens Energy supplied the gas turbines for the project.

Following successful trials, the CHP plant will go into commercial operation in the near future and will be used for both base load and peak load supply.

Peter Heydecker, chief operating officer for Sustainable Generation Infrastructure at EnBW, commented: “Solely by switching from coal to natural gas, we are making dispatchable generation significantly more climate-friendly with around 50% lower carbon emissions. From the mid-2030s, we expect to take the next step and, after a second fuel switch, operate the plant on up to 100% low-carbon hydrogen, provided that this is available in sufficient quantities.”

After a short period running in parallel, the coal-fired unit and the fuel oil-fired gas turbines within the old cogeneration plant at the Münster site will be completely decommissioned in the spring of 2026.

This project will contribute to climate change mitigation in the City of Stuttgart and will help decarbonise the region’s heating.

Dr. Andre Baumann, State Secretary at the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy: “The State of Baden-Württemberg is a pioneer in the heat energy transition, with our municipal heat plans providing the blueprint for the municipal heat planning legislation adopted at national level. New gas-fired power plants like this one in Stuttgart-Münster will also play a key role in the ongoing success of the heat energy transition in Baden-Württemberg.”

The project will aid in the expansion of renewable energy according to EnBW, as the highly flexible plant can start up very quickly in response to grid fluctuations when there is insufficient renewable electricity. This will allow the plant to contribute to the security of supply in southern Germany, a region with pressing needs for flexible power.

Beside this fuel-switch project, EnBW is also converting the previously coal-fired sites in Altbach/Deizisau and Heilbronn to hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants.