In Bosbüll, a municipality in the Nordfriesland district, residents are warming their homes with sustainable heat from the local area. This is all thanks to Bosbüll Energie GmbH, a company founded by John-Heinrich Ingwersen – managing director of a wind farm in the region – as well as to Bosbüll’s mayor Ingo Böhm and GP JOULE.
The company partnered with the municipality to build a local heating network. Heat is produced from green electricity from an air-source heat pump as well as from local wind turbines and solar panels whose subsidies under the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) are due to lapse. Surplus heat can also be stored temporarily for lengthy periods of time at low cost with the help of a heating element and a spacious buffer tank.
GP JOULE is acting as project planner and operator as well as being a shareholder in Bosbüll Energie GmbH and responsible for commercial and technical management.
The Bosbüll heating network
Ingo Böhm
Mayor of Bosbüll
“The municipality of Bosbüll and GP JOULE have developed a strong bond over the years through working together on numerous projects. GP JOULE came across as a highly reliable partner, and we’ve only had positive experiences with them. So the municipality didn’t even consider asking anyone else to build this heating network with us.”
Bosbüll Energie’s heating network is the first of its kind in Schleswig-Holstein to use power-to-heat technology, where the heat is generated from electricity – in this case from wind turbines and solar panels. The district heating network is also fed by the waste heat from two electrolysers that are producing green hydrogen in Bosbüll for the eFarm project. The wind and solar farms and the electrolysers can thus continue to be used to generate heat even after the EEG no longer applies. Value creation is also kept local, with 30 homes and a large pigpen in Bosbüll already enjoying sustainable, affordable heat.