Drilling of the first well for the Laufzorn II geothermal heating plant in the municipality of Grünwald in Bavaria, Germany has been completed. Although the actual conditions of the well can only be determined once a pump has been installed, initial results indicate that the well discharges thermal waters at over 100 °C and 100 L/s.
Drilling of the first well was officially inaugurated in May 2025. The rig will now be moved to the site of the reinjection well, which is expected to begin drilling in early November. A total of six boreholes will be drilled. The commissioning of the heating plant, to be operated by local utility Erdwärme Grünwald (EWG), is then scheduled to be done by 2028.
“We are relieved that the first drilling was so successful. It lays the foundation for heat supply for future generations in Grünwald,” remarked Andreas Lederle, Managing Director at EWG.
The expansion work for geothermal heating in Grünwald had been awarded an initial EUR 62.3 million of funding from the Federal Ministry of Economics. However, the cost of the project increased to approximately EUR 190 million due to the decision to drill two more boreholes. Thus, the federal funding amount correspondingly increased as well to EUR 75 million.
Lederle also reports that the company has now secured approximately 2,200 contracts for the geothermal heating network, corresponding to about 70% of the potential connection capacity in Grünwald. This is facilitated by a 40% federal subsidy for house connections. EWG operates the 120-kilometer-long Grünwald network, plus 65 kilometers of the existing network in Unterhaching.
Source: Merkur.de
