Those who want to go to the indoor pool in Weiherhammer will find the doors closed. So far, so normal: the facility with its 25-meter pool is closed in summer, but there is the bathing pond as an alternative. In autumn, the pool in the district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab is supposed to open again as usual – but will it do so in view of the current energy crisis?
“As things stand, yes,” says Mayor Ludwig Biller on the phone. “Fortunately, we’re not so dependent on oil or gas,” thanks to our own combined heat and power plant. But electricity is also becoming more expensive, and the indoor pool is also in deficit: around 130,000 euros are added every year, “because we can afford it for the population,” says Biller. “It has always been our goal to preserve the bathroom for as long as possible.”
Biller hopes to achieve this goal again next winter – and he’s not alone in Bavaria. Many cities and municipalities, but also hoteliers and private providers are grappling with the high energy prices, all kinds of supply uncertainties and the question of what all this could mean for comparatively expensive offers such as swimming pools.
The municipal baths in rural areas, where young people learn how to crawl and older people keep fit, are an endangered species. A number of them have had to close forever in recent years: too old, too expensive. And now: too energy-intensive?
Three outdoor pools remain open but cold
What is certain is that the municipalities must and want to save money and energy. The motto: small cattle also make crap. In some places, fountains are therefore switched off or street lamps are dimmed at night. In Nuremberg, a special step was taken – and three of the city’s four indoor swimming pools were closed. Only the Langwasserbad is open until the beginning of September, after that only the Südstadtbad until September 25th. The three outdoor pools remain open, but run without additional pool heating.
“We have to prepare for possible restrictions in the gas supply in good time,” Mayor Marcus König (CSU) justified the decision in a statement. And a swimming pool consumes a lot of energy. The municipal outdoor and indoor swimming pools in Nuremberg alone gobble up around 9.4 million kilowatt hours of district heating and 800,000 kilowatt hours of gas every year.
“Classically heated swimming pools are extremely energy-intensive,” confirms Jan Giersberg from Stadtwerke Bamberg. Their Bambados indoor pool is showing how it’s done these days: The pools and showers are not made from fossil fuels, but have been brought to a comfortable temperature with wood chips for more than ten years. Fast-growing poplars, which are also located directly in Bamberg, serve as raw material suppliers.
“The foresight to generate climate-friendly energy pays off,” says Giersberg. It is more luck than calculation that the indoor pool is therefore not or hardly dependent on the energy price. For the people of Bamberg this means that they can swim and have a sauna even in winter.
In some bathrooms, the heat simply evaporates
In fact, the current crisis is hitting municipalities and their swimming pools with varying degrees of severity. As in Bamberg, some have largely isolated their pool from the energy market, while others have a natural hot water source, and others have natural gas. And while some were able to renovate their systems in the past, the rest have to watch as heat dissipates through poorly insulated pipes and panes.
According to a handout from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für das Badewesen, one of the biggest energy-saving factors is the water temperature: a drop of two degrees can reduce total energy consumption by up to 25 percent. Another critical point is heated year-round outdoor pools.
Something that is particularly fun requires a particularly large amount of energy
They consume about 100 times more energy per square meter than a well-insulated house. The “decommissioning of attractions” such as large slides, fountains and bubblers could also pay off.
Private operators are faced with problems similar to those faced by many municipalities. In a survey by the hotel and restaurant association Dehoga about the greatest burdens, energy prices ranked ahead of the rising costs for food and staff. “We don’t know if we can keep our status quo in autumn,” says hotel manager Florian Lingenfelder from “Das König Ludwig” in Schwangau. For the luxury hostel with a view of Neuschwanstein Castle, the status quo means: a wellness area with a 2,000 square meter swimming area and 21 heated saunas.
“We have long-term gas supply contracts that will hopefully get us through the winter,” says Lingenfelder. Should they be terminated, it would be a “cost explosion at an exorbitant rate”. It is uncertain whether these will then be passed on to the guests, whether less heating will have to take place or whether parts of the wellness area will have to be closed. For the hotel manager, it is also unclear whether people “have the means to afford a holiday in such scenarios in winter”.
The Thermenhotel Ströbinger Hof in Chiemgau has even set up an energy task force to optimize its in-house savings measures. “We can only drive on sight at the moment,” says the marketing boss on the phone, meaning not only the energy prices but also the shortage of skilled workers. In the hotel, the temperature outside is now being reduced in some cases, the tarpaulins are removed from the swimming pools later in the morning, saunas are heated for a shorter time, and lights are only on when necessary. Little things that add up, but “the guest doesn’t feel it”.
And what if all the savings are useless and the feared gas bottleneck occurs in winter? According to a paper by the Federal Network Agency, depending on the situation, it may then be “sensible or even necessary” to initially reduce the supply to a “large number of small, energy-intensive, non-protected end consumers with short lead times” to almost zero. “Examples here would be swimming pools and fun pools.” In Bavaria, too, this should then affect a number of facilities, their employees and visitors.
Whether and to what extent this case will occur at all, of course, nobody knows yet. According to all forecasts, what remains are the high energy prices. At least Weiherhammer’s Mayor Biller would advocate a kind of energy cost allowance for the indoor swimming pool: raising the admission prices to absorb the additional costs is not an alternative.
But Biller is much more concerned with what will become of the communities in view of the financial burdens. He’s thinking in particular of the local school, which still heats with gas. “That’s where,” Biller fears, “we’ll have the most cost explosions.”