Renewable sources of energy
Securing renewable sources of energy security of supply
Wien Energie is setting great store by renewable sources of energy. In contrast to fossil fuels, their availability is indefinite. However, solar rays, water and wind are not just inexhaustible ‘local’ sources of energy. Because they do not release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, they are classified as being ‘particularly environmentally friendly’ in the production of energy.
By 2010, Wien Energie should be producing 500 gigawatts of electricity purely from green energy power plants, equating to a tripling of levels in past years. This constitutes Wien Energie’s sustainability target which was already achieved during the previous business year when the Levél wind farm in Hungary came online.
- Photovoltaic system at the Technical Museum
Harnessing the power of the sun
Extensive photovoltaic systems located on the roof of Vienna’s Natural History Museum and at the Vienna International Center take full advantage of solar rays to produce energy. The noise barrier protecting the Theodor-Körner-Hof apartment complex on Margareten Gürtel was fitted with 193 m2 of photovoltaic panels, while Vienna’s largest photovoltaic system, with over 311 m2, will be installed on the south side of Simmering 1/2 power station as part of its repowering project. Wien Energie’s subsidiary, Energiecomfort, installed solar panels covering an area of 3,500 m2 in a passive house residential area in Vienna’s 21st District. Each of the four detached buildings in this residential area has its own solar power unit and control centre.
Biomass produces masses of energy
People have used wood to produce energy for thousands of years, and even today, this raw material is still vital to the future of energy production, because biomass is one of the main sources with which we will meet our growing needs for electricity and heating.
Vienna’s Simmering district is home to Europe’s largest forest biomass power station. It has been operational since October 2006, supplying 48,000 households with electricity and 12,000 with heating. Approximately 190,000 tonnes of forest biomass are converted into clean energy each year. When taking the amount of district heating extracted into account, the power station annually produces 167 gigawatt hours of electricity. The advantage of all this is that wood is a so-called ‘environmentally neutral source of energy’, releasing only as much CO2 as the tree had previously absorbed.
This means that the Simmering biomass power station saves an annual total of 144,000 tonnes of CO2 compared to plants powered with either oil or coal – a reduction of 80%. Put another way: this state-of-the-art power station replaces approximately 72,000 tonnes of hard coal or 47,000 tonnes of heating oil per year.
Service functions
Download
