Padborg Fjernvarme thinks outside the box; they think big and far into the future. They even have a day-to-day motto saying: We try to sell as little heating to consumers as possible. That is not something you hear every day. But what does it actually mean?
We are not like everyone else – we are one of a kind
Padborg Fjernvarme has chosen not to operate according to the state duty system, which has made many plants across the country focus on wood chips.
‘Because it is just a matter of time before they also impose a duty on wood chips’, says Chairman Jan Riber Jakobsen.
Padborg Fjernvarme does have the plans for a wood chip plant in the drawer, which they could start building tomorrow. Instead they have chosen to utilise the unique opportunities available in the Padborg area. They call it utilising the local potential.
Local potential and good working relationships
Padborg Fjernvarme has 1,735 connections and an annual production of 40,000 MWH of which 40 per cent is green energy. The latter is only possible because of the local potential, i.e. the industry and manufacturing companies based at Padborg Transport Centre, which sell their surplus heat to Padborg Fjernvarme.
Network events at Padborg Transport Centre, a course at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the visionary ideas of Padborg Fjernvarme have led to a collaboration with a local dairy. The dairy used to discharge its wastewater into Flensburg Fjord. Now the water is transferred via a pump to Padborg Fjernvarme’s lines, where the surplus heat is utilised and contributes with 19 per cent of the annual consumption in the supply network.
DTU students developed brilliant business case
In 2018, a group of DTU students provided the calculations for the innovative solution that would create a new ecosystem and utilise the wastewater from the dairy.
‘At the time, it almost sounded too good to be true, so we believed that even if the calculations were a bit off, launching the project would pay off. Today, three years later, we can see from the day-to-day figures that the calculations were spot on’.
Today, in 2021, with the help of the DTU students, Padborg Fjernvarme has almost reached its goal of reducing the plant’s CO2 emissions by 70 per cent before 2030.
The plant still has several good cases from DTU in the drawer that they can choose to ‘energise’ when the timing is right.
‘We are ready when Power2X is’, Jan Riber Jakobsen concludes.
