Environmentally friendly district heating from waste heat

21 December 2021 |

Environmentally friendly district heating from waste heat: bioenergie.at cooperates with voestalpine Tubulars

Environmentally friendly heat for Kindberg

Steel billets are heated to 1,300 degrees in the rotary hearth furnace to turn them into seamless high-tech tubes. This process generates a lot of waste heat, which until now could not be used to its full extent. Thanks to an innovative, cross-industry and partnership-based cooperation between the bioenergie.at group of companies and voestalpine Tubulars, environmentally friendly district heating can now be made available for Kindberg.

up to

4000 kW

of waste heat can be extracted from this process

With the concept of the waste heat specialists from Köflach, up to 4,000 kW of waste heat can be extracted from this process. In detail, a dedicated heat exchanger with 1,536 water-bearing pipes will be installed upstream of the special chimney to be built for heat recovery. Via a dedicated pumping station on the premises of voestalpine Tubulars, the heat thus obtained will be made available to the new district heating network of the Kindberg municipality.

The new 4 MW biomass heating plant built by Bioenergie also feeds its heat into this environmentally friendly district heating network. With a 6 MW oil-fired heating system, which stands in in the event of a failure, the district heating is operated redundantly and 100% reliably. In addition, a photovoltaic system on the roof of the heating plant produces 150 kW of electricity.

As the main customer and pioneer of this innovative and climate-friendly district heating solution, the municipality of Kindberg already decided in July to connect all municipal properties to the bioenergy district heating network.

f.l.t.r. Gernot Graller-Kettler - Commercial Managing Director of voestalpine Tubulars, Gerald Gfrerer - Technical Managing Director of voestalpine Tubulars, Christian Sander - Mayor of Kindberg, Jakob Edler - Managing Director of bioenergie.at, Helfried Wernigg - Head of Asset Management at voestalpine Tubulars

win-win situation by heat extraction

The project is to be implemented not only efficiently, but above all quickly. The district heating pipes will be laid as early as next year. From late autumn 2022, large parts of Kindberg should already be supplied with environmentally friendly district heating.

As mayor of our simply livable town of Kindberg, I am delighted that we will start building a district heating network through the center of Kindberg with the renowned company Bioenergie in the coming year. In addition to producing our own electricity from hydropower, solar energy and wind, this is an important and significant step towards protecting our environment and climate. Kindberg is particularly proud of its cooperation with voestalpine Tubulars, where the waste heat from the rotary hearth furnace will also be fed into our district heating network. I look forward to the successive expansion of Kindberg with district heating.

Christian Sander, Mayor of Kindberg

After several attempts, we have now found the right partner in the Bioenergie Group from Köflach to make optimum use of our waste heat potential. We are particularly pleased that we are thus making a contribution to heating buildings in Kindberg in an environmentally friendly way.

Gerald Gfrerer, technical managing director of voestalpine Tubulars

We were very pleased that we were able to gain the trust of the Kindberg municipality at a very early stage. Now we are even more pleased that we can enter into a sustainable partnership with voestalpine Tubulars for an environmentally and climate-friendly heat supply.

Jakob Edler, Bioenergie Managing Director

Groundbreaking ceremony on March 16th 2022

The groundbreaking ceremony was held by Gerald Gfrerer, Technical Managing Director of voestalpine Tubulars, Project Manager Helfried Wernigg and Bioenergie Managing Director Jakob Edler.

Provincial Councilor Ursula Lackner and Kindberg Mayor Christian Sander also took part in this festive occasion on March 16th 2022.

About Bioenergie.at Group

The bioenergie.at group of companies comprises energy technology, plant engineering and forestry and has established itself as a specialist in environmentally friendly and sustainable energy management. The West Styrian family business is now in its sixth generation and is clearly on course for growth. In Austria, the Bioenergie Group operates 26 sites - 16 heating plants, three CHP plants, five waste heat projects, one hydropower plant and one wind farm.