Case Studies

The diffuse white light of the greenhouse makes the color of the plants, which are waiting for their delivery to retail, appear even more intense. The new greenhouses of the Hartmann GmbH & Co. KG in Schwarzach am Main cover almost 2.9 hectares. Heat and electricity for the greenhouse, which runs almost fully automatically, come from the CHP plant next door. 

Public utilities as participants in virtual power plants? What sounds unusual is now common practice. After all, municipal utilities also have a great deal of flexibility that can be put to good use by means of digital networking and short-term electricity trading through virtual power plants. 

Karl-Heinz Zurhold, graduate engineer and veteran of the energy revolution sums up the self-image of his region: "When it comes to the expansion of renewable energies in the Münsterland region, there will be no competition between us - we help each other. “

“We want to manage the expenses of our hospital as efficiently as possible, so we always try to find ways to reduce our operating costs. That’s why we put our emergency power generator on the balancing energy market. In doing so, we tapped its unused potential, since we can now use the returns from the balancing energy market to maintain the unit,” Bernhard Timmer explains.

"Back there we see the Lingen nuclear power plant," says Thomas Voss, pointing north across the undulating Münsterland . "And there is the Ibbenburen coal-fired power station," he continues, now pointing east. "In between we have spread out." We, that is the energy cooperative of the Energielandwerker, which has grown into a strong association of power plant operators of the other, more sustainable type in the northern Münsterland.  To date, around 155 renewable energy plants have joined forces in order to operate as a cooperative on the market. The cooperative's generation capacity is more than 270 megawatts, ranging from wind power to bioenergy and photovoltaics. Some loners between the omnipresent fossil power plants? With this renewable energy capacity, they are more likely to be a major regional player in the new energy world..

Rain pours down in droves as Matthias Reimers unbars the gate to the pumping station. He is the CEO of a public association that operates and maintains, among other things, pumping stations on a dike on the North Sea in Germany. They pump rainwater back into the North Sea to keep the salt marsh habitable and cultivatable. “Today we have to pump,” Reimers says as the downpour continues.

When it comes to decentralized energy production, flexible electricity generation and heat production seem to be mutually exclusive, especially in the case of bio methane CHP plants. The Energielenker from Greven in the Münsterland region show that this is not necessarily the case. Their bio methane CHP plant in tranquil Gronau is an example of this approach – one out of the ten plants currently operated by the Energielenker, which together have a capacity of around five megawatts.

Already during the train ride along the idyllic Murg valley, the traveller will see a hydroelectric power plant on the bank every few kilometres. It is not so long ago that coal power from the Rhineland was responsible for the base load and hydroelectric power from southern Germany for the peak load. 

When someone starts investing in renewable energies, they often find themselves confronted with plenty of skepticism. “There were concerns that reflections off the solar modules would interfere with air traffic at the nearby airport,” explains Jens Sandschulten, CEO of the solar power station Klausheide GmbH & Co. KG. But these concerns, like so many others, turned out to be unfounded, and there were no hurdles to clear before constructing the ten-hectare solar power station in southwest Lower Saxony. 

“When our biogas power plant was under construction, people wondered why we were installing 4 MW CHPs but only kept the motors running for a few hours a day” says Onno Wilberts while pointing at the three combined heat and power (CHP) units at the biogas power plant he operates with his business partner Guido Koch.