2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

26 Commissioning ceremony for the high-load digester in Bad Dürrenberg “As of today, the transition to renewable energy has become reality in Bad Dürrenberg, where we are now realizing the am- bitious objective of obtaining energy from wastewater in fu- ture,” enthused Johanna Michaelis, executive secretary of the joint water supply and waste management authority (ZWA), at the commissioning ceremony held on June 14, 2012 for the high-load digester developed by the Fraunhofer IGB. The in- auguration of the wastewater treatment plant in Bad Dürren- berg, Saxony-Anhalt, was attended by representatives from communal and regional politics and Stockleben GmbH (local consulting engineers involved in the project) as well as the IGB’s Professor Thomas Hirth, Dr.-Ing. Ursula Schließmann and Dr.-Ing. Werner Sternad (director, head of department and project manager, respectively). In the face of rising costs for energy and waste disposal, the ZWA had been investigating the options for forward-looking, economic and sustainable wastewater treatment. Using the high-load digestion process developed by the Fraunhofer IGB, it was possible to convert the existing wastewater treatment plant from an aerobic stabilization plant into an anaerobic sewage-sludge digestion facility. The high-load digester gen- erates gas, which is fed to a micro-gas turbine where it is con- verted into energy and heat. As a result of this process, the sewage plant’s energy consumption will fall by over 50 per- cent, and a third less sludge that has to be disposed of will be produced – leading to a signiﬁcant reduction in future operat- ing costs. Inauguration of the EtaMax-demonstration plant in Stuttgart-Gaisburg One of the key factors for the success of energy transition is an adequate supply of renewable energies. The EtaMax joint project, funded for ﬁve years by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the “BioEnergie 2021” funding initative, makes a small but important contri- bution here. It facilitates the decentralized generation of ener- gy from local waste that is not yet being utilized energetically, the local utilization of biogas in e.g. mobility, and helps to re- duce the emission of carbon dioxide. On October 25, 2012 a two-stage multisubstrate demonstra- tion plant with two 3500-liter bioreactors was taken into operation on the premises of the EnBW combined heat and power plant in Stuttgart-Gaisburg. It has capacity to fer- ment an annual 160 metric tons of raw organic waste from the wholesale market in Stuttgart, which translates into 20 to 25 cubic meters of biogas produced daily, depending on the composition of the waste. After puriﬁcation with membranes, there is a daily yield of just under 15 kilograms of biogas- methane available as a fuel for gas-powered vehicles used for test-driving or engine-testing. After the welcome by the hosts EnBW and Fraunhofer IGB, which is also coordinating the project, Baden-Württemberg’s environment minister Franz Untersteller expressed his delight that the new process makes possible almost perfect biogas plant. Further words of greeting were offered by Dr. Hans-Jo- sef Zimmer (Chief Technical Ofﬁcer and Member of the Board of Management, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG), Dr. Christian Mohrdieck (Director of Fuel Cell & Battery Drive De- velopment, Daimler AG Group Research and Advanced Engi- neering Division), as well as Ines Aufrecht (Business Develop- ment Director, Stuttgart Economic Development Department). HIGHLIGHTS 2012 3 4 3 4

2012|13 Annual Report Fraunhofer IGB

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