Biomass cogeneration plant for bmw factory
 
From 2025, the car manufacturer BMW wants to cover half of the process heat requirements of its vehicle plant in Dingolfing in Lower Bavaria with regional biomass and its own residual wood stocks.

Municipal utility subsidiary supplies BMW's largest production site in Europe

BMW wants to generate its cars with green process heat in future. To this end, Bavaria's largest industrial company has signed a supply contract with UP Energiewerke, a subsidiary of Stadtwerke Dingolfing and Bayernwerk Natur. It is investing 45 million euros in the construction of a biomass cogeneration plant. The foundation stone was laid on 9 July 2024. "The site is thus sending a clear signal for the use of renewable energies and sustainable forestry use," says Managing Director Thomas Schmidmeier from Schmidmeier Naturenergie, which is building the plant as general contractor. At 85 per cent, the majority of the fuel comes from waste wood from regional forestry. The rest is covered by untreated waste wood from the BMW production site.

Decarbonising car production

"The project not only represents a milestone in the decarbonisation of industrial process heat, but also promotes regional value creation," says Schmidmeier. The hot water plant consists of three biomass boilers with a total output of 15,000 kilowatts and supplies 100,000 megawatt hours of heat per year. A buffer tank with a volume of 600,000 litres stores the hot water. The plant is equipped with state-of-the-art flue gas cleaning, which, according to Schmidmeier, is far above the industry standard. A two-stage dedusting system using centrifugal separation for coarse dedusting and fabric filter systems for fine dedusting ensures compliance with the legal limits. Completion is already planned for 2025.