Berlin preps 'huge thermos' to help heat homes this winter & More News Here

BERLIN (AP) — The rust-colored tower rising from an industrial website close to the banks of Berlin’s Spree river seems nothing just like the smooth flasks Germans use for espresso, but its goal is comparable: to present some heat all through the day, particularly when it’s chilly outdoors.

With a peak of 45 meters (nearly 150 ft) and holding up to 56 million liters (14.8 million gallons) of scorching water, utility firm Vattenfall says the tower will help heat Berlin homes this winter even when Russian gasoline provides dry up.

“It’s a huge thermos that helps us to store the heat when we don’t need it,” mentioned Tanja Wielgoss, who heads the Sweden-based firm’s heat unit in Germany. “And then we can release it when we need to use it.”

While district heating programs fueled by coal, gasoline or waste have been round for greater than a century, most aren’t designed to retailer important quantities of heat. Instead, they burn as a lot fossil gasoline as wanted, contributing to the greenhouse gasoline emissions which can be driving international warming.

By distinction, the brand new facility unveiled Thursday at Vattenfall’s Reuter energy station will maintain water introduced to nearly boiling temperature utilizing electrical energy from photo voltaic and wind energy vegetation throughout Germany. During intervals when renewable power exceeds demand the power successfully acts as an enormous battery, although as a substitute of storing electrical energy it shops heat.

“Sometimes you have an abundance of electricity in the grids that you cannot use anymore, and then you need to turn off the wind turbines,” mentioned Wielgoss. “Where we are standing we can take in this electricity.”

The 50-million-euro ($52 million) facility can have a thermal capability of 200 Megawatts — sufficient to meet a lot of Berlin’s scorching water wants throughout the summer season and about 10% of what it requires within the winter. The huge, insulated tank can hold water scorching for up to 13 hours, serving to bridge quick intervals when there’s little wind or solar.

It may even give you the option to use different sources of heat — corresponding to that extracted from wastewater, mentioned Wielgoss. While it is going to be Europe’s largest heat storage facility when it’s accomplished on the finish of this 12 months, an excellent greater one is already being deliberate within the Netherlands.

Berlin’s prime local weather official, Bettina Jarasch, mentioned the sooner such heat storage programs are constructed, the higher.

“Due to its geographic location the Berlin region is even more dependent on Russian fossil fuels than other parts of Germany,” she instructed The Associated Press. “That’s why we’re really in a hurry here.”

“The war in Ukraine and the energy crisis teach us that we need to be faster,” mentioned Jarasch.

“First of all to become climate neutral,” she mentioned. “And secondly, to become independent (of energy imports).”

Figures launched Thursday by Germany’s utility business affiliation BDEW reveals efforts to cut back pure gasoline use are having an impact.

Consumption of gasoline dropped by 14.3% within the first 5 months of this 12 months in contrast to the identical interval in 2021.

Part of the decline was due to milder climate, however the business group mentioned even accounting for hotter temperatures there was a measurable drop that it attributed to bumpier financial circumstances, appeals from the German authorities to save power and people’ private efforts.

Wielgoss mentioned she was assured that Vattenfall’s prospects gained’t go chilly this winter, regardless of the looming gasoline squeeze from Russia as Moscow retaliates for Western sanctions by lowering the gasoline flowing via key pipelines.

“Consumers in Germany are very well protected,” she mentioned. “So they for sure will not suffer any shortages. But of course, we plead with everybody to really start saving energy.”

“Each kilowatt hour we save is good for the country,” she added.

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Follow AP’s local weather protection at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

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