The plant is financed by a subsidiary of NATURSTROM AG with the help of green electricity subsidies. The plant makes an important contribution, because Germany has a high potential especially in the area of heat supply for buildings, which recently remained unused. According to current figures from the Federal Environment Agency, the share of renewable energies in the heating sector rose by only 0.2 percentage points year-on-year to 14.5 percent.
Power-to-heat plant ensures security of supply
The core of the energy supply in Lupburg is the power-to-heat plant. What is special about this plant is that it enables uninterrupted participation in the energy market. If there is too much electricity in the grid, conventional plants are switched off. The power-to-heat plant, on the other hand, continues to produce electricity, which is converted to heat in the event of a grid overload and stored in buffer tanks. This additional installation of the two buffer storage units, is intended to counteract a potential shortage of energy on days when there is little wind or sun. They ensure constant operation with efficient clocking, for higher full load hours of the wood-fired power plant. This has ensured security of supply for customers for more than five years.
Grüner Strom Label e.V. gets things moving in the energy transition
In Lupburg, additional households in a new housing development were integrated into the grid after the system went into operation in 2014. However, more projects of this kind are needed throughout Germany for a determined energy turnaround, especially in the heating sector. The Grüner Strom Label e.V. obligates certified energy providers to invest a fixed amount per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed in energy transition or nature conservation projects. In this way, important steps towards an emission-free future can be taken every year. In total, more than 1,400 projects have already been co-financed with green electricity label-certified green electricity products.
