Thermal heat from sewers: Bavarian Energy Award 2012 in the category Energy Concepts and Initiatives goes to HUBER SE!

On 18th October, Bavarian Economics Minister Zeil handed over the Bavarian Energy Awards 2012. HUBER SE received an award as first place winner in the category Energy Concepts and Initiatives for the innovativ and responsible use of energy.

Bavarian Economics Minister Martin Zeil described the prize winning projects as ‘outstanding developments for an innovation-oriented energy turnaround’. The CO₂-saving project ‘Thermal heat from sewers‘, which HUBER SE implemented in cooperation with the city of Straubing and GFM Ingenieure GmbH, supplies approximately 65% of the heat demand of 102 apartments, which is nearly 350,000 kWh per year. These savings are made possible by a special technical process: A special heat exchanger extracts the heat from the wastewater, which is warm water from showers, bathtubs, washing machines or kitchen sinks which flows into the sewer. A heat pump adjusts the temperature of the extracted wastewater heat to the temperature required to heat the apartments. Compared to geothermal energy and groundwater heat the wastewater heat solution provide high temperatures of at least 12 °C during the whole year.

HUBER early recognised that the heat potential in wastewater is a precious energy source and developed at their headquarters and production in Berching the ThermWin system installed on STP Straubing. The heart of this innovative development is the RoWin Heat Exchanger. The RoWin Heat Exchanger is in direct contact with the municipal wastewater, despite all the pollutants contained within the wastewater. The engineers of HUBER SE have developed a self-cleaning method for the RoWin Heat Exchanger to ensure maximum heat transfer results are achieved and the economic efficiency of the complete system can be guaranteed.

The project has been in operation since the icy winter in 2010 and convinced with a reliable heat supply already in the first year. HUBER SE received the Bavarian Energy Award mainly due to the use of regenerative energy sources and the resulting CO₂ savings of approximately 70 tons. The first Bavarian Energy Award was presented in 1999. Since 2000, the ceremony takes place every two years. The award winners are nominated in a multi-stage selection procedure by an independent jury of energy experts from several Bavarian universities.