With the completion of the geothermal heating plant in Freiham, the Stadtwerke Munich have realized their third district heating project together with ERDWERK. The project is part of the vision of the city of Munich to be the first major city in Germany to supply its residents exclusively with renewable energy by 2040. 

The project in Freiham consists of a so-called doublet system comprising two wells which results in a closed thermal water cycle: The thermal water is brought to the surface via a production well. From there the thermal energy of the thermal water will be transferred in a heat exchanger to the district heating water for further use. The cooled water will be returned via the injection well. Therefore, no water will be taken from the underground – only the heat of the thermal water is used for heating.  
 

In order to fully exploit this, a special low-temperature network will be installed in Freiham for the housing development that meets the most recent energy standards. For the energy use, the district heating water will be cooled down significantly whereby more heat energy is also extracted from the same amount of thermal water. This takes full advantage of the temperature difference.

ERDWERK supported the project from the geological preliminary planning through the approval procedure to the execution of the seismic campaign which included the interpretation of the collected data and the drill path concept design.
Further, ERDWERK carried out the implementation planning of the drilling and acted as the site management for the drilling of the wells.