Fossil fuel

The Altbach/Deizisau combined heat and power plant is an important economic factor for a reliable, economical and environmentally friendly energy supply. At this location, EnBW operates several plants with a total electrical output of around 1,200 MW.

The two co-generation units are operated with coal and simultaneously produce electricity and district heating in combined heat and power mode. Combined heat and power plant 2, which was commissioned in 1997, is one of the most modern coal-fired power plants in Europe. As a composite unit, it consists of a steam and gas turbine process – a type of power plant that has been realised in this way for the first time. A secured district heating output of 280 MW each can be extracted from combined heat and power plants 1 and 2. The site also has a gas–oil combination unit and three gas turbines.

The Heilbronn thermal power plant is located in an industrial and commercial area on the outskirts of the city directly on the Neckar. With an electrical output of 1,000 MW and an extractable thermal output of 320 MW, it is one of EnBW’s largest coal-fired power plants.

Of the original seven blocks, three are still in operation. Block 7 is the largest hard coal-fired unit in EnBW’s conventional power plant park. In 2009, the plant was technically optimised by extensive modernization measures and prepared for the requirements of the coming decades. In addition to the district heating supply, Block 7 is also available for the environmentally friendly and resource-saving co-incineration of sewage sludge. As smaller locations, the power plants in Marbach and Walheim are assigned to the Heilbronn site.

The Walheim power plant was built between 1962 and 1967 by Neckarwerke Elektrizitätsversorgungs AG. It has two coal-fired units. Block 1 was connected to the grid in September 1964, and Block 2 was connected in August 1967. In the winter of 1981/1982, a gas turbine fired with light heating oil was put into operation at the Walheim power plant.

Because it can be started up within a few minutes and feed electricity into the grid, it is used when demand peaks occur and thus serves as a reserve. From 1987 to 1989, the two coal-fired units were retrofitted at great expense in terms of environmental technology. Plants were also installed for desulphurisation and nitrogen oxide reduction of the flue gases. The nitrogen oxide reduction system for a melting chamber boiler with ash recirculation broke new technical ground. In 1990, the gas turbine was retrofitted for low nitrogen oxide operation. Block 1 was preserved in April 2000. As part of reactivations in its power plant park, EnBW put the plant back into operation in 2005.

Of the original three units, the Marbach 2 and 3 power plant units with a total capacity of 413 MW are still in operation today. They serve as back-up reserves. This means that they must always be ready for operation. Marbach 2 is a gas turbine plant in which steel engines from Rolls Royce drive the power turbines.

Today, however, this plant only serves to generate peak load and as a minute reserve. Marbach 3 is an oil-fired gas and steam turbine plant (combination block).

For half a century, electricity and district heating for the Karlsruhe region have been produced in an economical and environmentally friendly manner in the Rheinhafen of Karlsruhe using state-of-the-art technology: In 2014, for example, we commissioned a new coal-fired unit at our power plant site. With an efficiency of over 46%, it is one of the most efficient and thus environmentally friendly units in the world.

On the RDK 8 site, there are a total of eight power plant units on the site. The oldest, blocks 1 to 3, have been decommissioned since the 1980s; the two oil- and gas-fired units 5 and 6 have been in cold reserve since 1993 (i.e. they can resume operation after a lead time). Block 4 is one of the world's most efficient combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants with a unit efficiency of around 57%. Since 1995, the coal-fired power plant unit 7 has been generating not only electricity, but also district heating for the city of Karlsruhe by means of combined heat and power generation.

With a total installed electrical output of 1,800 MW and a maximum district heating output of 440 MW, the RDK is an important and reliable pillar for the economical and environmentally friendly generation of electricity and district heating in EnBW’s power plant park.

The Stuttgart-Münster thermal power plant is a special feature of the EnBW power plant park: The focus of the plant is not on electricity generation, but rather on thermal waste treatment and district heating generation.

To improve fuel utilisation, electricity and district heating are generated simultaneously in Stuttgart-Münster according to the principle of combined heat and power generation. The CHP plant consists of a coal-fired power plant with three coal boilers, a waste incineration plant with three waste boilers, two steam turbines, and a gas turbine plant. The Stuttgart-Münster site has a total electrical output of 164 MW and a total thermal output of 450 MW. The treatment capacity of the waste-to-energy plant amounts to 420,000 tonnes per year (reference calorific value 11,000 kJ/kg). EnBW thus makes an important contribution to reliable, environmentally friendly, and economical residual waste disposal in Baden-Württemberg.

The power plant complex consists of two power plant units. The plant is used exclusively for district heating. It operates EnBW’s only fluidized bed boiler. With this type of boiler, a mixture of ash, coal, and lime in the combustion chamber is put into a suspended state by air supply and burnt. The special feature of this technology is the direct addition of lime, which directly binds the pollutants produced in the combustion chamber. This allows the prescribed emission limits to be met without the need for expensive flue gas cleaning systems.

We plan to comprehensively modernise the site.

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