Zorneding promotes planning for its own local heating network – Ebersberg

It was frosty cold on Thursday evening in Zorneding – at least in front of the town hall. Inside, on the other hand, the members of the municipal council used the scheduled meeting to think warmly about the future. This provides for the community to have its own local heating network, which is to be fed by the geothermal energy of the neighbors from Vaterstetten. This makes Zorneding the first municipality in the region to take concrete steps to connect to the planned pipeline.

Originally, the idea was floating around in the district of even forwarding the geothermal energy obtained in Vaterstetten to Ebersberg and Grafing. But that quickly turned out to be too ambitious, as Zorneding’s climate protection manager Elisabeth Buchmann said at the meeting. “That could have supplied 50 percent of all district residents.” Nevertheless, the project did not end up in the wastepaper basket entirely, because, according to Buchmann, the basic idea lives on. The only difference is that the project will not be implemented in one step. Instead, each interested municipality should push ahead with its own planning for a local heating network, which can ultimately be connected to the Vaterstetten geothermal energy system.

The municipality will not become rich with its own local heating network

In Zorneding, the planning is already entering a very concrete phase. On Thursday, the municipal councils were informed about how such a heating network could be operated at all. Werner Weber from the Bavarian municipal auditing association presented the possible forms of company with their respective advantages and disadvantages. For example, the possibility of Zorneding founding his own municipal company, which then manages the heating network economically. This legal form is currently very popular in Bavaria. “If you look at the development in Bavaria, then the municipal company is very popular,” says Weber. The municipality would have a say in the statutes and the board of directors.

However, the town hall would be much more involved in the day-to-day business of heat supply if it were run by the government or in-house. In the former directly via the municipal budget, in the latter via a special fund. According to Weber, however, there is also the possibility of regulating the heat supply under private law via a GmbH – but this carries the risk that the company could then go bankrupt. This is not the case for all other legal forms. However, the community will not earn a fortune from the local heating network anyway. “It’s not a money printing machine,” says Weber. Rather, one can speak of a good heat supply even with a plus-minus-zero business.

The funding application has been submitted and Zorneding is now waiting for positive feedback

In the next few weeks, the local councils will have to decide which legal form the network should ultimately take. On Thursday, the committee decided on a further step towards geothermal energy in Zorneding: at the urgent recommendation of climate protection manager Elisabeth Buchmann, the municipality commissioned a feasibility study that is part of a new federal funding program, for which Zorneding already committed itself in autumn applied for last year. In addition to grants for the same study, it also includes a contribution to the costs of expanding the network. The positive funding decision is expected in the next few weeks, says Buchmann.

However, the entire geothermal project will not happen that quickly. Last summer, the Vaterstetten municipal council decided in favor of the project without a dissenting vote – and set itself an ambitious schedule: the warm deep water is to be fed into the municipal local heating network as early as winter 2025/2026. Then Zorneding could also participate in the project, provided that its own network is ready for operation by then. And one more question needs to be clarified: Where is the money for the geothermal project supposed to come from? Because this is anything but cheap, according to experts, the drilling alone costs around 20 million euros.

source site