Location selected for geothermal heating plant in Schwetzingen, Germany
GeoHardt has announced the location of a planned geothermal heating plant in Schwetzingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany as part of a wider regional initiative.
GeoHardt GmbH has announced the location for a planned geothermal heating plant in the town of Schwetzingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. This is part of a larger project that involves the construction and operations of three geothermal heating plants in the Rhine-Neckar region. The first site, in Mannheim-Rheinau, had already been announced in 2025.
The geothermal heating plant will be built on the site of the Rondellweg, bordering the railway line running from Schwetzingen to Mannheim-Friedrichfeld. The site covers an area of 20,000 m2, which will be in use during the construction phase. Once completed, the geothermal heating plant will require only around 10,000 m2.
“With the Rondellweg location, we can celebrate the second success of our intensive site search. We look forward to starting the next project phase and thank Schwetzingen and Plankstadt for organizing the project advisory board, which facilitates a structured exchange with various stakeholders from politics and society,” said Matthias Wolf, Managing Director of GeoHardt.
GeoHardt is a joint consortium of German utilities EnBW and MVV Energie that aims to deploy geothermal district heating in the Rhine-Neckar region, thus contributing to the goal of the State of Baden-Württemberg of achieving climate-neutrality by 2040. Part of the goal is for the district heating network of MVV to be fully supplied by renewable energy sources by 2030.
The planned geothermal plants of GeoHardt will supply geothermal heating plants to more than 160,000 households and businesses when operational.
The company relies on the tried-and-tested hydrothermal process, which taps into natural hot water reserves deep within the Earth. “Utilizing geothermal energy from water-bearing strata is a proven technology. It has been in use for over a century and is reliably employed at more than 40 locations in Germany alone,” says Stefan Ertle, Managing Director of GeoHardt.
GeoHardt now needs to apply for a mining permit process before the establishment of a drilling site can begin. The State Office for Geology, Raw Materials and Mining (LGRB) at the Freiburg Regional Council is responsible for issuing this permit.
Source: GeoHardt GmbH