MAN Energy Solutions Commissions CHP Plant in German City Schwäbisch Hall

MAN Energy Solutions has fully commissioned the new CHP (Combined-Heat-and­-Power) plant for Schwäbisch Hall Municipal Utilities in southern Germany, and handed it over to the client.

The company was contracted in August 2017 to supply an MAN 12V35/44G TS gas engine to replace the plant’s two existing engines of 3 MW output each; the engine’s two-stage turbocharging design makes the 7.5 MW unit particularly efficient. As a result, the Schwäbisch Hall CHP plant now achieves a fuel efficiency of up to 90%.

“Schwäbisch Hall Municipal Utilities are pioneers in the field of the energy transition and decentralised generation,” said Hajo Hoops, Senior Sales Manager in the Power Plants division of MAN Energy Solutions. “The decision to order from MAN was made on the basis of the outstanding efficiency and flexibility of the system. It will also be possible to participate in the energy balancing market in the future; the existing, district-heating storage components allow the decoupling of electrical and thermal energy-generation.”

MAN will remain an important project partner, even after the commissioning of the plant, with MAN Energy Solutions’ global after-sales division, MAN PrimeServ, being charged with servicing and maintaining the engine for the next 10 years.

Key contributor to the energy transition

“The new engine will achieve an electrical efficiency of 47%, compared to the 39% of the previous units,” confirmed Gebhard Gentner, Managing Director of Schwäbisch Hall Municipal Utilities. “This means a 20% increase in the efficiency of the plant as a whole, thereby fulfilling the requirements stipulated in the German CHP Act for the plant to be operated commercially.”

Gentner concluded: “High-efficiency technologies, such as heat and power cogeneration, make an important contribution to controllable power generation in the context of the energy transition. That's why Schwäbisch Hall Municipal Utilities generate power and heat from more than 50 cogeneration units at over 30 sites.”