Johnson Controls Equipping Hamburg Wastewater Plant with Industrial Heat Pumps

Johnson Controls has recently announced an agreement to aid the city of Hamburg, Germany, in its endeavor to decarbonize its district heating network. The project, a cooperative venture between HAMBURG WASSER (Hamburg Water) and Hamburg Energiewerke (Hamburg Energy), entails outfitting the Dradenau site of the Hamburg Central Wastewater Treatment Plant with an advanced heat pump system capable of averting around 66,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. Detailed engineering studies are currently in progress, and the facility is anticipated to furnish the city with fossil-free heating utilizing the new heat pumps as soon as 2025.

Under the agreement's terms, Johnson Controls is tasked with installing four 15 MW industrial heat pumps, which will provide an environmentally responsible heating solution for over 39,000 residential units. In lieu of employing fossil fuel heating, these heat pumps will extract heat from the treated wastewater discharged daily from the plant and channel it into Hamburg Energie's central district heating system, which is a component of the Energiepark Hafen heating network (the city's port energy park). This initiative constitutes one of Germany's inaugural industrial heat pump projects.

The heat pumps will be sourced from Johnson Controls' advanced facility in Nantes, France, one of the company's most extensive manufacturing plants for refrigeration solutions and industrial heat pumps in the EMEA region.

Tomas Brannemo, President, Johnson Controls, EMEALA, stated, "The electrification of heating and cooling is a pivotal step towards the energy transition and achieving the decarbonization objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change." He further highlighted the integral role of heat pumps in leveraging untapped renewable heating resources and fostering a more integrated and sustainable energy system.

Ingo Hannemann, CTO and Spokesperson of the Board of Management of HAMBURG WASSER, emphasized the value of wastewater as a resource for environmentally friendly energy production. He expressed his satisfaction in being able to support the port energy park and contribute to a project that will supply Hamburg with heat from renewable sources.

Christian Heine, spokesman for the management of Hamburger Energiewerke, shed light on Hamburg's future reliance on a modular energy system for its heat supply, primarily generated through industrial processes, waste recycling, and the HAMBURG WASSER wastewater treatment plant.