District heating from wastewater

Hamburg focuses on wastewater heat: sustainable energy for the future

With its innovative use of wastewater heat, Hamburg Wasser is demonstrating how the urban energy transition can be implemented in practice. Germany’s first large-scale wastewater heat pump is being built at the Dradenau wastewater treatment plant. It is expected to supply up to 39,000 households with climate-friendly district heating from 2025.

Every day, around 450,000 cubic meters of wastewater flow through Germany’s largest municipal sewage treatment plant. Even after treatment, this water still has temperatures between 12 and 22 degrees Celsius. This is an energy potential that has been untapped until now. In collaboration with Hamburger Energiewerke, this residual heat will in future be processed by a heat pump and fed into the district heating network. The result: a heat output of 60 megawatts and savings of up to 90,000 tons of CO₂ per year.

The wastewater heat pump is part of the Hafen Energy Park, which is set to replace the Wedel coal-fired power plant. In addition to using wastewater heat, the concept relies on climate-neutral waste heat from industry and waste recycling. This creates a flexible generation network that supplies more than 55 percent climate-neutral heat.

With this project, Hamburg is proving that sustainable energy generation is not just a vision, but a reality. Wastewater is thus becoming a central component of climate-friendly district heating. It shows how urban infrastructure can actively contribute to climate protection.

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Source: https://www.hamburgwasser.de/umwelt/energiegewinnung/abwasserwaerme

Photo: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/industrielle-ansicht-eines-kraftwerks-in-hamburg-29606805/