State-of-the-Art High-Efficiency Cogeneration Plant Commissioned for HanseWerk Natur in Hamburg

GE is pleased to announce that today, Hamburg’s largest and most modern high-efficiency combined heat and power (CHP) plant , run by HanseWerk Natur, was commissioned near the Tivoli GlobalMalt. The new CHP plant is equipped with multiple GE’s Jenbacher* gas engines and achieves a total electrical output of 8.4 megawatts. That is enough to power up to 20,000 households in the Hamburg region. In addition, the waste heat from the CHP plant supplies heat and hot water to 500 residential buildings and businesses.

By generating both heat and power, the plant achieves a total efficiency of over 95 percent

, says Thomas Baade, CEO of HanseWerk Natur GmbH.

With this extremely high efficiency and impressive operational flexibility, the CHP plant helps to achieve greater security in energy supply and is therefore another valuable part of the decentralized energy supply in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg.

The new CHP plant replaces the previous heat generation from the landfill plant while also generating power. Due to the extremely high efficiency, the specific carbon dioxide load for 1 kilowatt-hour of heat from the new cogeneration plant is roughly 40 percent lower than a kilowatt-hour generated in a coalfired
power plant with heat extraction**.

While the percentage of renewable energies in power generation is growing continuously both in terms of production capacity and volume, expansion of other innovative forms of generation will also continue for many years.

GE’s gas engine technology can make a key contribution to implementing the energy transition

, explains Carlos Lange, president of Distributed Power.

For example, GE’s cogeneration solutions are an efficient, climate-friendly, reliable and profitable approach to meeting the energy demand.

Not only are the GE units themselves innovative, but their predictive operation is too. The myPlant* Asset Performance Management solution by GE actively collects all important engine parameters of selected Jenbacher gas engines for HanseWerk Natur. The service life of the various system components can be predicted with the analysis data obtained. This allows HanseWerk Natur to transition from a reactive to a proactive, condition-based maintenance strategy for the engines.

The new CHP plant in Hamburg-Eidelstedt is an important milestone in the more than 20 years of collaboration between the company and GE. Over 50 climate-friendly Jenbacher gas engines are already in operation in other HanseWerk Natur power plants throughout Germany. HanseWerk Natur has also
proven itself as a certified service partner for GE’s Jenbacher gas engines since 2011.

HanseWerk Natur GmbH

HanseWerk Natur GmbH is one of the largest regional providers of heat and decentralized energy solutions in Northern Germany and has many decades of experience as a heat supplier.

Combined, the company’s local and district heating networks are roughly 800 kilometers in length. With 1,200 heat connection networks, cogeneration plants and heating plants, HanseWerk Natur supplies tens of thousands of private and industrial customers and public sector facilities 365 days a year. In addition to this, the company offers tailored energy concepts and state-of-the-art installation engineering for optimized energy use, which reduces emissions and relieves the strain on the environment. HanseWerk Natur operates multiple cogeneration plants, a virtual power plant for generating balancing energy and
absorbing excess heat in its grids to store it there for customers.