Author: IMP PAN

On 14 March, Andreas Reinholtz from BTB Berlin presented the planning and realization stage of the residential project “Living on Campus” in Berlin-Adlershof in the frame of a seminar at IMP PAN in Gdańsk (Poland). Under conditions of strong competition amongst energy and heat providers, BTB Berlin as the owner and operator of local combined heat and power plants (CHP) has invested in the main grid of district heating (DH) and developed plans for low temperature district heating (LTDH) systems sourced from return flow of DH net. In order to encourage local investors to consider LTDH as a viable option, BTB proposed the possibility to include solar technologies into their business plans. BTB allows those who provide solar heat to the grid during summer to get back the same amount during winter time. Besides, as BTB uses CHP plants (some use biomass as the main heat source), they provide heat with a very low primary energy coefficient 0.25, which is hardly achievable by other means. Today, there are 1200 apartments in single-family homes, terraced houses and apartment blocks in the area of around 19 ha.

Photo credits: Małgorzata Ostachowicz, IMP PAN; Magdalena Jähler, atene KOM GmbH