In Munich, south of the city centre along the Isar River, one of the largest geothermal heating plants in Europe is under construction and on schedule to begin supplying 80,000 citizens in the Bavarian capital with heat and cooling services in 2021. The Schäftlarnstraße plant is one of six in total that by 2035 will supply much of Munich's 1.5 million citizens with heat, and many of them also with cooling and some even with electricity, too. Alongside Paris and other European cities, including Hamburg, Aachen, and Potsdam in Germany, Munich is intent on tapping the vast energy potential of the hot thermal waters that flow beneath the earth’s crust in order to hit ambitious Energiewende (energy transition) targets, especially in Germany’s fossil-fuel-dominated heating sector.
“Munich’s is the most advanced geothermal strategy for district heating in Central Europe,” says Andre Deinhardt of the German Geothermal Association (BVG), an umbrella group for the industry. “The rest of Germany’s cities are today where Munich was 20 years ago. But many want to catch up,” he says.