Senator Giffey and BEW boss Christian Feuerherd present the first annual balance sheet of the now state-owned company.
© dpa
The state-owned Berliner Energie und Wärme GmbH (BEW) plans to invest around 3.3 billion euros in the climate-neutral conversion of Berlin's district heating network by 2030.
The sum is to be financed largely through loans, said BEW CEO Christian Feuerherd. A high equity ratio of around 50 percent ensures good conditions on the debt capital market. A third of the sum has already been secured via bridge financing from several banks. The conversion of the Reuter West combined heat and power plant from coal to renewable fuels is currently underway. Among other things, a large wastewater heat pump and a steam turbine powered by waste heat from waste incineration are to replace coal. The remaining eight large combined heat and power plants are also to be gradually converted accordingly.
Berlin took over the more than 2,000-kilometre-long district heating network from energy company Vattenfall in May last year. It supplies around 700,000 apartments in the capital with district heating. The Senate's goal is to make the network completely climate-neutral by 2045. For Vattenfall, the focus was on the separation of fossil energy generation. Senator for Economic Affairs Franziska Giffey (SPD) announced a concrete roadmap for decarbonizing district heating this year. She emphasized that the Senate is building on the existing plans of the former owner Vattenfall. The aim is to update and develop them further.