Chronicle
In the city of Salzburg, Salzburg AG maintains the Mitte thermal power station. For this purpose, the gas turbine was lifted out on Monday in order to subject it to a detailed inspection. The turbine is considered the heart of the district heating supply in winter and produces electricity for 58,000 households.
13.06.2022 15.19
Online since today, 3:19 p.m
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Every five to seven years, the two-decade-old turbine in the combined heat and power plant (HKW) Mitte has to be completely dismantled and serviced. It is exposed to high loads during operation. Temperatures of 1,100 degrees are reached in the combustion chamber. On Monday, she was lifted out of her position with a crane. The overhaul work on the gas turbine will continue until the end of August. A total of 3,000 individual parts have to be disassembled
Residual heat: steam turbine and hot water
Salzburg AG uses the residual heat in a two-stage process to generate electricity. The gas turbine is coupled to a generator. In order to use the exhaust gases, which are around 560 degrees Celsius, efficiently, steam is generated in a large waste heat boiler with heat exchangers. This drives a steam turbine, which in turn produces electrical energy. After that, the steam is still 180 degrees hot – and is converted into hot water. This supplies around 44,000 households with district heating via a network that is now around 230 kilometers long.
“In an emergency, we could switch to heating oil operation if the gas supply was stopped. The customer wouldn’t notice a thing,” explained Sebastian Schuller, Head of District Heating at Salzburg AG. In addition to a 100-ton fuel oil tank as a reserve in the power plant itself, there is a pipeline to HKW Nord, just under two kilometers away, where up to 40,000 tons of fuel oil can be stored.
District heating from biogas, biomass and waste heat
The gas turbine in HKW Mitte is generally idle during the summer months. While around 80 percent of the district heating requirement can be met from renewable energies such as biogas, biomass and waste heat from large industrial companies such as Austrocel or the panel manufacturer Kaindl in the warm season, it is around 30 percent over the year. However, after completion of the Siezenheim II biomass power plant, which is currently under construction, this share is expected to increase to 40 percent.
40 percent of natural gas from Russia
Salzburg AG obtains around 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, with the rest coming from Norway and Austria. It is not yet certain what effects the war in Ukraine and the increased energy costs will have on the future district heating prices of the state energy supplier: “We are still looking at the pricing,” said company spokeswoman Karin Strobl on Monday.
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