In early 2023, SWN received a grant notification from the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control for EUR 10 million to fund the geothermal heating project. This funding will account for about about 40% of the cost for the project that has an estimated budget of EUR 25.5 million.
The drilling order is for two geothermal wells, each to a depth of around 2000 meters. Thermal water at temperatures of around 70 °C is expected to be extracted from the boreholes. This will be fed into the existing district heating network in combination with high-temperature heat pumps. A thermal feed-in capacity of 76 GWh per year has been calculated for the project, corresponding to the requirements of around 3000 average four-person households.
“The heat supply should start in 2027,” said Thoralf Uebach, Managing Director at SWN, during a previous event.
Mayor Nico Ruhle points out that despite the very high investment costs, the implementation of the geothermal project will ultimately provide price stability for the customers of SWN and the residents of Neuruppin. Wiebke Papenbrock, Member of the Bundestag, also campaigned for the project at the federal level as described it as a “lighthouse project that will radiate far beyond Neuruppin.”
The Neuruppin project will be the fourth geothermal heating project in the North German lowlands to be drilled by Daldrup & Söhne following projects in Schwerin, Hamburg, and Neustadt-Glewe. The subsurface of the North German Plain, such as in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg, offers cities and municipalities optimal geological conditions for utilising geothermal energy.
