A dispute has broken out between the CSU and SPD in Haar as to whether the community missed a great opportunity years ago when developing a geothermal power plant and who is to blame. The debate was triggered by the CSU with just two sentences. Mayor Andreas Bukowski wrote in the party newspaper the hairer Written: “It is now taking revenge that the geothermal energy propagated by the CSU Haar in 2008 was rejected.” CSU faction leader Dietrich Keymer took up this almost verbatim recently in the municipal council. Now the SPD is defending itself and accuses the CSU of wanting to score points with “false” claims in the energy crisis triggered by the Ukraine war at the expense of others. In fact, in 2010 all parties represented in the municipal council unanimously buried the geothermal project.
At that time it was about a possible cooperation with Vaterstetten, Zorneding and Grasbrunn in order to be able to jointly bear the high costs for a well. Haar commissioned studies to estimate heat requirements and economics. There was also a feasibility study. A yield near the existing geothermal power plant of the Stadtwerke in the trade fair city was viewed critically, as was a borehole in the Haar area in the south. In the end, all four municipalities kept their hands off it. The costs were estimated at up to 240 million euros.
Apart from the fact that nobody thought it could be financed at the time, there was an argument in Haar that a district heating network would first have to be built and that a well-developed gas network was available. In view of the impending gas emergency, this is of course no longer an argument. And so the people from Haar look to their neighbors who have invested in geothermal energy in good time. And Vaterstetten digs up the old plans again. Even before the outbreak of war, a claim was secured there in which an investigation campaign is to be run in order to examine a possible yield of hot water. Mayor Leonhard Spitzauer (CSU) speaks of “ambitious goals” and is again in contact with Zorneding and Grasbrunn.
They now want to coordinate with Vaterstetten
Haar is not involved in these informal talks, although the two CSU mayors actually get along well with each other. When asked, Spitzauer described it as an “absolutely good idea” to talk to Bukowski about an energy alliance. He didn’t really have Haar on the radar because years ago, Haar had said goodbye to a cooperation with reference to the gas supply. Buskowski says: “We will definitely coordinate what is possible together.”
Meanwhile, there is a bad atmosphere in the Haar municipal council because the SPD sees itself wrongly cornered by the CSU. SPD parliamentary group leader Thomas Fäth says that the community and the parliamentary groups dealt intensively with the topic between 2008 and 2010. “So some interested members visited the geothermal plant in Riem. For me it was a very interesting tour, as far as I can remember my colleague Keymer wasn’t there.” And now, of all people, Keymer is accusing the others of not having been up to par. He would welcome it, says Fäth, to “look at the issue together” again with neighboring municipalities. One question, of course, is whether Haar is prepared for it. The municipal works of Vaterstetten, says Spitzauer, have set up their own district heating network. That helps a lot now.