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Cities of Munich and Vienna to partner on sustainable energy supply

Cities of Munich and Vienna to partner on sustainable energy supply View over Munich, Germany (source: Praxisforum Geothermie.Bayern/ Enerchange)
Alexander Richter 14 Mar 2022

The cities of Munich and Vienna partner on sustainable and climate friendly energy sources with a particularly look at geothermal for heating.

With the common goal of an urban energy supply that is as climate-friendly and autonomous as possible, the two state capitals of Munich (Bavaria, Germany) and Vienna (Austria) and their municipal energy suppliers have agreed on close cooperation in the areas of geothermal energy and digitization. A working agreement was reached in Munich City Hall on March 10, 2022.

In view of the global climate crisis, the effects of which are also becoming much more noticeable in Europe, and not least because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the phase-out of gas and oil and the associated change to an independent and sustainable energy supply seem more urgent than ever.

In this regard, the provincial capitals of Munich and Vienna have agreed on close cooperation at an operational and political-strategic level with regard to a sustainable and independent energy supply. The agreement on future city cooperation took place on March 10th in Munich City Hall. In addition to Mayor Dieter Reiter (Munich) and City Councilor for Finance and Economics Peter Hanke (Vienna), Dr. Florian Bieberbach, CEO of Stadtwerke München and Dipl.-Ing. Peter Weinelt, Managing Director of Wiener Stadtwerke on site.

“There is a clear way how we can counteract the current challenges: We have to reduce our CO 2 emissions! With the end of fossil fuels, efficient alternatives are increasingly becoming the focus of activities. Such alternatives are crucial for the long-term successful implementation of the energy transition in all sectors and for climate protection,” says City Councilor for Economic Affairs Peter Hanke.  

Mayor Dieter Reiter also agreed: “Munich wants to be the first major city in Germany to replace fossil fuels with renewable energies across the board. Because the combustion of natural gas and heating oil is currently one of the biggest causes of the greenhouse gas emissions occurring here. And the current global political situation shows how important this changeover is, and not just from an ecological point of view.”

According to Peter Weinelt, Deputy Director General. of Wiener Stadtwerke, European metropolises and cities, such as Munich and Vienna, are particularly important for the climate challenge, as they could play a pioneering role in the conversion of energy and mobility systems.

“We currently see the goals of our renewable energies expansion campaign, which we started in 2009, as confirmed more clearly than ever: The dependency on fossil fuels and thus also on the producing countries is falling with the progress of our energy production from sun, wind and geothermal heat with a focus on the region. When having electricity we have already achieved 90% of our goal of generating as much green energy in our own plants as the whole of Munich consumes,” explains Dr. Florian Bieberbach, Chairman of the SWM Management Board.

The implementation of the goals of the European Union – climate neutrality by 2040/2050 – requires massive expansion and high investments in renewable energies. Great efforts must therefore be made in the direction of photovoltaics, wind and hydropower as well as geothermal energy and (green) hydrogen. In the federal capital of Vienna alone, around half a million gas boilers have to be converted to fossil-free, sustainable solutions. Another goal of the City of Vienna is to significantly advance the expansion of photovoltaics so that electricity generation using photovoltaics can be increased from 250 MW peak by 2025 and to 800 MW peak by 2030 in the city area.

The city of Munich also wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2035.

Numerous innovations and pioneering projects are already promising promising approaches to transforming, becoming independent and making the energy system climate-neutral. However, it is not only the generation of electricity that is decisive for climate neutrality and energy autonomy, but also the conversion of the heating systems to renewable heat sources.  

Over the last few years, technological development in the heating sector has continued to make progress. Thus, geothermal use, for example via probes and heat pumps, is already proving to be the standard in a large number of new development areas.

Geothermal district heating is also becoming more and more important, and the city of Munich is playing a pioneering role in this regard. According to a report by the Tagesspiegel, the sixth geothermal power plant of Stadtwerke München is currently running in trial operation at the Heizkraftwerk Süd location, which is also the largest geothermal power plant in Germany. By 2040 at the latest, geothermal energy is to take over the majority of the district heating supply in the Munich area. Vienna is currently planning to use geothermal energy to cover a quarter of its district heating supply by 2040.

As part of the city cooperation, both cities are currently running the joint smart city pilot project “Smarter Together”. It once again becomes clear that issues in the areas of mobility, technology, energy supply and renovation affect both cities equally. The direct exchange should also support the challenges of digitization and a citizen service.

Source: Our German partner site TiefeGeothermie