Drilling of geothermal probes is now ongoing for a district heating system for the city of Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The project by local utility Stadtwerke Münster seeks to supply geothermal heating and cooling to 500 residential units from a borehole field consisting of 102 geothermal probes, each drilled to approximately 250 meters.
In contrast to most geothermal district heating schemes in Germany, Münster is implementing a “cold” district heating project. This means that the probes tap into shallow ground temperatures of up to 10 °C. This is insufficient for heating, and so must be upgraded by heat pumps before the water is supplied to the connected buildings. During summer, the system can also be used for cooling by lower indoor temperatures by several degrees Celsius. Regardless, it is a renewable heating and cooling system that is powered by local sources and operates without fossil fuels.
The geothermal probe field is being drilled at the new Albachten-Ost development and is expected to be completed by summer. When operational, the first supply of heat will flow into newly built elementary school. The supply pipes into the building have already been completed. A similar geothermal district heating scheme is also being built by Stadtwerke Münster in the new Handorf-Kirschgarten development.
The local utility is investing around €8.5 million in the climate-neutral heat supply in Albachten-East. Forty percent of the investment is financed through the federal government’s funding program for efficient heating networks (BEW).
Sebastian Jurczyk, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Münster, says that the centralized heating solution costs slightly less than individually implemented heating solutions. The company will handle everything related to the operation and technology of the system, but it will only work commercially is there is a high level of connection to the network. Thus, all future property owners in the development area are obliged to a 25-year purchase agreement with the utility company.
The city of Münster had expressed an aspiration to utilize geothermal energy for district heating as far back as 2021, and Stadtwerke Münster was one of five municipal utility companies in North Rhine-Westphalia to sign an “Alliance for Geothermal Energy” in 2022. By 2024, seismic surveys had been done in the city to map the subsurface and locate a potential geothermal reservoir.
Source: Stadtwerke Münster
