Energy Concept
The Future in a Cycle.
Heating in winter, cooling in summer – and all with almost no fossil fuels. In the Schumacher Quarter, we see how a low-emission energy supply can work in the city of the future.
The Schumacher Quartier is connected to an energy concept that is unique worldwide. Green Urban Energy is implementing what is known as the “low-exergy network” for this purpose: a low-temperature network that supplies the entire Berlin TXL site – that is, the Schumacher Quartier and the adjacent Urban Tech Republic with heating and cooling.
Heating and Cooling
The principle is as simple as it is clever: The hotter a pipe is, the more heat and energy it loses to the environment. That’s why the LowEx network operates at low temperatures. And it is precisely these low temperatures that make it possible to efficiently utilize environmentally friendly heat sources – such as waste heat from buildings, server rooms, industrial facilities, or wastewater. In winter, the network supplies heat at up to 40 °C; in summer, it cools buildings at a constant temperature of around 20 °C.
The Energy Marketplace
For users, the system works like an energy marketplace: They can not only purchase energy, but also feed their own waste heat into the grid and receive compensation for it. Instead of simply consuming energy, they produce it themselves, thereby becoming prosumers – that is, both producers and consumers.
Electricity, Smart Grids, and Energy Storage
A so-called underground aquifer storage system complements the system: It stores excess heat from the summer and releases it in the winter and vice versa. This allows some of the energy generated in the neighborhood to be used locally.
When it comes to electricity supply, highly efficient combined heat and power plants are gradually replacing the old gas-fired heating plants. Together with solar power systems and wind power, they help reduce the share of fossil fuels and decrease dependence on conventional electricity – taking the neighborhood step by step toward a low-emission energy supply.