enercity and Eavor signed the heat supply contract for the geothermal project in Hanover on 29 September. From 2026, up to 30 MW of renewable and base load-capable geothermal power will be available annually for the district heating network in Hanover. This means that geothermal energy will play a key role in the city's climate-friendly heat supply in future. Geothermal energy can be used to generate heat regardless of weather conditions. The "Eavor Loop™" technology is used to extract this heat: a medium is fed in a closed circuit through many kilometres of drilled pipes at a depth of around 3,000 metres.
Once the project is completed, 15 to 20 % of Hanover's annual district heating requirements - and thus of up to 20,000 homes in the enercity supply area - can be covered in a climate-neutral manner using base load-capable geothermal energy. This corresponds to an output of up to 250 million KWh of geothermal energy.
"The heat from deep underground will make an essential contribution to ensuring that a third of people in Hanover will be able to heat their homes with climate-neutral district heating in 2027“, says enercity CEO Dr Susanna Zapreva. "The plant with its innovative geothermal energy generation will be the first metropolitan application of its kind and will enable us to decommission the last coal-fired unit in our generation portfolio." Geothermal energy will start feeding into Hanover's district heating network when the first loop is commissioned in 2026.
First step towards long-term cooperation for independent energy supply
"We are looking forward to this project and to using our technology to contribute to converting a significant part of the base load of the district heating supply for the city of Hanover to renewable and independent energy", says Daniel Mölk, Managing Director of Eavor GmbH. Eavor is already building a plant of this type in Geretsried, Bavaria.
The long-term heat supply agreement concluded between the two companies forms a solid foundation for the future development of the co-operation. This includes, for example, the granting of mining licences for the project. Eavor's actual drilling work is scheduled to start in 2025. As soon as the first well delivers heat, enercity will start building a new district heating pipeline to the site.
