RheinEnergie AG and Cologne Bonn Airport are continuing their joint climate protection activities: a sustainable wood-fired heating plant is being built on the airport grounds that will significantly reduce CO2 emissions and supply the airport with heat generated in an environmentally friendly way. The plant is scheduled for completion in winter 2025/2026 and will then achieve a heating capacity of 2.5 megawatts (MW).
As an energy service provider, RheinEnergie has been reliably ensuring the supply of gas, electricity, cooling and heating to Cologne Bonn Airport for many years. Together, the two partners are continuously working on solutions to supply the airport with climate-neutral energy. The construction of a new wood-fired heating plant marks a further milestone in this endeavour. The new energy supply system is being built by the ‘RheinEnergie - next energy solutions’ team as part of a contracting agreement. The finished wood-fired heating plant will be operated by Flughafen Köln Bonn GmbH.
Climate-friendly energy generation from local, renewable raw materials
The partners attach great importance to the sustainable use of fuels. The wood-fired heating plant therefore uses green waste from the airport's own areas and local, renewable raw materials such as landscape conservation material. AVG Ressourcen, a subsidiary of Abfallentsorgungs- und Verwertungsgesellschaft Köln mbH (AVG), is the main supplier of these materials. AVG Ressourcen already has the largest and most modern waste wood processing plant in the region, which supplies not only secondary fuels but also the chipboard industry with material for recycling. The local partnership not only enables the use of domestic, renewable fuels but also extremely short transport distances.
‘With this modern and sustainable heating plant, we are reducing CO2 emissions at Cologne Bonn Airport and actively contributing to climate protection in Cologne and the region,’ says Andreas Feicht, CEO of RheinEnergie. ’We are pleased to be able to maintain a partnership of equals with Cologne Bonn Airport and AVG Cologne and to implement such flagship projects in our city.’
‘The wood-fired heating plant sets new standards in the climate-friendly supply of heat to our major customers,’ adds Stephan Segbers, RheinEnergie's Chief Sales Officer. ’I am particularly pleased that our project avoids long transport routes that unnecessarily harm the environment – and thus supplies the airport with heat efficiently and sustainably.’
‘By converting our heating supply, we are living up to our responsibility to people and the environment to a particularly high degree. Our cooperation with RheinEnergie and AVG offers a great deal of added value for our region and the location,’ says Thilo Schmid, Chairman of the Management Board of Flughafen Köln/Bonn GmbH. ’This will enable us to further reduce emissions and continue to shrink our carbon footprint.’
‘We are pleased to support this great project by supplying domestic fuels and promoting a local and thus sustainable value chain,’ says AVG Managing Director Andreas Freund. ’After all, the energy transition is also about securing valuable materials from the recyclable stream and making them available again for the production process.’
Federal funding for the construction of the energy-efficient plant
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWi) is funding the installation of the wood-fired heating plant with subsidies from the Energy and Climate Fund (EKF). ‘We are very pleased about the federal government's support for this project, because it makes a significant contribution to the decarbonisation of one of Germany's largest airports,’ Andreas Feicht continues. ‘We would like to thank the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control for honouring our energy-efficient concept.’
The first construction work at Cologne Bonn Airport will start in January 2025. The wood-fired heating plant is to be completed in winter 2025/2026 and will then achieve a maximum heating capacity of 2.5 megawatts (MW). Since the wood-fired heating plant does not use fossil fuels, over 2,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide can be saved each year.
