Local municipalities join forces on geothermal develpoment in Fürstenfeld, Southeastern Austria
Fürstenfeld Hauptplatz, Steiermark/ Austria (source: flickr/ Joachim Kracher, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
2 Mar 2020
The Fürstenfeld region in Southeastern Austria sees a municipal collaboration effort to tap into geothermal energy for heating planned business parks and businesses in the region.
Ten municipalities in the Fürstenfeld region in Southeastern Austria have joined forces to form the Fürstenfeld eco-energy region with plans to implement larger geothermal projects, for example with a planned business park or the Fürstenfeld district heating network.
The Fürstenfeld region has large amounts of geothermal water, says the director of the impulse region Fürstenfeld, Robert Gether. The municipalities, which have now merged to form the eco-energy region, want to take advantage of this to protect the environment and at the same time strengthen the regional economy with ecological projects, in order to make the region more interesting for business settlements.
In the next few years, several projects with a volume of several million Euros are planned, Gether says: “We are working with HTL Pinkafeld to investigate the switch from fossil fuels to geothermal energy and ask existing companies to support us. We’re going to work with the companies to take a closer look at their energy supply and try to do a study that shows what it means when they switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, especially geothermal energy. ”
Long-term planning
The Austrian Climate and Energy Fund has now approved the program of the Fürstenfeld eco-energy region. Robert Gether mentions the main goals as “expanding the Fürstenfeld district heating network and heating it with geothermal energy and supplying the future business park on the S7 (highway) with geothermal energy, that is, both for cooling and for heating company buildings.”
Obviously, the switch to geothermal energy sources is very expensive, especially in production, Robert Gether admits, but geothermal energy has the greatest potential for renewable energy and the costs would pay off in the long term.
With its geothermal know-how – see the Blumau glass house project – the Frutura company is to advise the region on the projects. The Fürstenfeld eco-energy region takes a look at Munich’s geothermal energy projects. The Bavarian capital wants to be self-sufficient with geothermal energy by 2050, so it can widely supply itself.
Further details via Geothermie Modell Region Fürstenfeld
Source: Steiermark/ ORF.at
