Up to 14 % of the requirement for heat in buildings in Germany can be met with energy from wastewater. Wastewater is an energy source that has major potential in urban areas in particular. Because wherever there are lots of people, there is also a great deal of wastewater and a high demand for energy. So, supply and demand fit perfectly. If one bears in mind that the heating market accounts for well over 50 % of the ultimate consumption of energy in Germany, it becomes clear how massive the energy potential of wastewater is. The heating market is a crucial playing field for the success of energy transition.
In Europe, there are already more than 100 Therm-Liner systems in use to extract wastewater energy decentrally out of the sewer system, most of them are in Germany, in France, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The plant sizes vary between an output range of 50 kW and 2 MW. It is forecast that even higher
heat extraction rates will be achieved in the area of district development. In the last ten years, the technology has become commercially viable and is now ready to be used as part of the heating transition. Demand has already risen dramatically in the last two years. Before this, demand in the heating market had been low
because of minimal efforts to protect the environment and the clear dominance of gas and oil. This is now changing rapidly, especially as heat pumps are thought to play a major role in the decarbonisation of the heating market. The sewer network operators are also showing increasing interest in wastewater energy. Some of them have already demonstrated the energy potential online in the form of energy maps. This means that anyone can check whether there is potential in the sewer at a particular location. It would be a good idea if all sewer network operators could provide energy maps of this type.
