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Traunreut geothermal heat and power plant to be operational by January 2016

Traunreut geothermal heat and power plant to be operational by January 2016 Turboden reference plant, Germany (source: Turboden)
Francisco Rojas 16 Jun 2015

Construction of Traunreut geothermal heat and power plant progressing with expected power generation start in January 2016.

The Traunreut geothermal project construction is going according to plan.

The plant in St. Georgen consists of two parts. The one part of the plant, which has been running for just over a year, is the district heating. The approximately 118 degree Celsius hot water from a depth of around 5,000 meters gives off its heat via heat exchangers to the water cooled from the district heating system comes from Traunreut and is sent back hot again. This means that the water from the depths to the heating water from Traunreut has no contact. These are two completely separate and self-contained circuits. The cooled water of the geothermal loop then runs back into the depths through a re-injection well.

The plant is setting up air-condensers with a frame construction and a size of approximately 40 by 50 meters square. This circumvents large environmental impact through large cooling towers that require a lot of cooling water, and would send up a lot of water vapor in the air. The air cooling, as it is practiced here in Traunreut, just requires air – for adequate functionality the system is set to a height of around ten meters -with lots of fans that provide the necessary air movement.

The plant is provided by a German-Italian consortium, with the plant being supplied by Italian Turboden.

The developer also sees an opportunity for additional utilization in the form of greenhouses, but this will have to be discussed locally.

Source. Traunsteiner Tagblatt (in German)