Project Seasonal Thermal Energy Storage

Meldorf, 07.05.2020 – Already in April 2018 the first steps for the implementation of the seasonal thermal energy storage system in Meldorf started. Now the project is gaining momentum. In the future, the storage facility is to temporarily store the waste heat of the Eversfrank Group’s Meldorf site and the adjacent biogas plant RKM Naturgas in summer to supply surrounding public buildings with heat in winter. The energy concept is unique in Germany in this form and is thus only applied in Denmark so far.

After the project already won the Schleswig-Holstein Energie Olympiade last year, the project continues to take shape: On a seven-hectare site behind the Eversfrank Group’s Meldorf location, a heat storage facility is to be built where in future 50,000 m³ of water will be stored and heated in summer to supply municipal properties with warm water in the colder seasons.

Although part of the waste heat generated during the Eversfrank Group’s printing processes has already been channelled to the Meldorf swimming pool, the potential is so high that a large part of it is still released into the environment. This will now change with the use of the thermal energy storage: With the system the waste heat utilisation of the printing plants can be increased to 90 %. At the same time, the CO₂ emissions for heat supply to the public properties will be reduced by up to 90 %.

“In an age in which environmental and climate protection are taken for granted, we must constantly adapt and reinvent ourselves,” says Axel Polei, Managing Director of the Meldorf site of the Eversfrank Group. “Besides paper, energy plays a central role in the printing process. That’s why we not only keep investing in new, even more efficient technologies, but also in the use of our waste heat. In addition, together with the other initiators, we are acting as a so called ‘lighthouse project’ that encourages the whole of Germany to follow suit”.

In a further step, once public properties have been supplied with heat, non-public buildings will also benefit from the heat storage system. The project is supported by the City of Meldorf, the Fachhochschule Westküste and Investitionsbank Schleswig-Holstein (IB.SH). The Wärmeinfrastruktur Meldorf GmbH (WIMeG) was founded by the City of Meldorf especially for this project.