Solar thermal plant Römerhügel in Ludwigsburg

70806 Ludwigsburg: With a collector area of 14,800 m², Stadtwerke Ludwigsburg-Kornwestheim has built the largest solar thermal plant in Germany (just over two football pitches). In a 20-metre high heat storage tank with a diameter of 14 m and a volume of 2,000 cubic metres, the solar-generated energy is available even when there is little or no solar radiation. The collectors collect around 5200 megawatts of heat per year, enough to supply around 300 average households. This saves around 3700 tons of CO₂ saved. According to the municipal company, this corresponds to 1.6 million liters of gasoline or a forest area of about 470 soccer fields. In addition, the plant's heat output in summer relieves the wood-fired power plant, which thus requires less wood chips. Completion: 2020

Municipal climate protection model project
As part of the project, the existing Ludwigsburg district heating network, which already provides heat for large parts of the city using predominantly renewable raw materials, was merged with the Rotbäumlesfeld, Technische Dienste Ludwigsburg (Gänsfußallee 21) and Kornwestheim-Nord networks, which are currently still supplied with fossil fuels. Through the construction of the solar thermal plant in connection with a large heat storage tank, which was built at the location of the HHKW, additional high-quality, regeneratively generated heat is fed into the expanded interconnected grid. The base-load heat of the previously fossil-fuelled heating centres of the individual grids could thus be replaced by the largely regeneratively generated heat of the extended interconnected grid. Approximately five kilometres of new district heating pipes were laid to connect the solar thermal system and the integrated network. The 20 m high heat storage tank is located 400 meters from the solar field in the industrial park next to the existing wood-fired power plant.

Federal funding
The construction of the solar thermal plant is part of the municipal climate protection model project of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, SolarHeatGrid "Construction and connection of the largest solar thermal plant in Germany to an optimised heating network". The project cost a total of 15 million euros, of which the federal government covered just under ten million euros.

The second largest solar thermal plant in Germany is located in Senftenberg (Brandenburg), with 8300 square meters of collector area. However, tube collectors were used there, which have a higher energy yield per area. In total, the plant in Senftenberg generates around 4000 MWh of heat per year.
The largest solar thermal system in Germany that supplies a city district and has been realised on a building is the one on the energy bunker of the IBA Hamburg with 6975 m² of tube collectors: http://sdg21.eu/db/energiebunker-iba-hamburg

Links
Assembly of the plant www.solarserver.de/2020/01/10/solarthermie-mit-gummistiefeln-ins-solarzeitalter/
www.swlb.de/solar-heat-grid

www.swp.de/...bundesweit-groesste-solarthermieanlage-30937148.html
PM of the public utility Ludwigsburg-Kornwestheim from 12.05.2017

sdg21 overview of settlements and neighbourhoods with large solar thermal systems:
www.solare-nahwaerme.siedlungen.eu