Austrian district heating supplier Kelag Energie & Waerme is planning to build a biomass power plant to supply up to 20 GWh of heat in a municipality in the country's westernmost state of Vorarlberg.
Under the plan, between 15 GWh and 20 GWh of heat should be produced from biomass in the municipality of Lustenau in the medium term and supplied to between 100 and 200 buildings in the region through a 12-km (7.45 mi) network, Kelag said.
The heat from the biomass power plant should be enough for public buildings in the municipality, including schools and kindergartens as well as companies based in local industrial parks and private households.
Construction of the biomass power plant and the district heating network is scheduled to start in the spring of 2024 with commissioning planned for the autumn of the same year. The capacity could be further expanded then.
The project will be implemented in cooperation with local company Rauch LFL which will supply the biomass.
Kelag will invest between €10 million and €15 million ($16.08m) in the project.
Kelag Energie & Waerme, a subsidiary of Carinthia-based utility Kelag-Kaerntner Elektrizitaets-AG, operates 85 district heating networks and around 900 heating centres across Austria and supplies more than 2 billion kWh of heat per year.
Austrian municipality to use biomass for heat generation
