International Center

 

ECM Excursion to Elzach

As part of the ECM curriculum, third-semester ECM students focus on small-scale energy systems such as block heating stations, biomass or hydro power. All kinds of these facilities happen to be operated in the region around Elzach, a small Black-Forest town some 40 km southeast of Offenburg.


Hesso Gantert, an ECM-3 student and native of Elzach, is very involved in the local energy ‘scene’ and took his fellow students on a highly interesting excursion last week, where they could compare their theoretical knowledge with the real life of energy production.

Hesso first took the group to Wisserhof, whose owner Nikolaus Dufner gave them a tour of his facility of combined electricity and heat generation, based on biomass. Mr. Dufner uses woodchips from his own forest, chaffed miscanthus plants and hay pellets. (Miscanthus is an energy plant which grows on poor grounds and therefore does not interfere with food cultivation.)

The group also got to see a new hydropower plant in Niederwinden and the central heating station of Elzach, which provides private households as well as manufacturing companies. 1,500,000 kWh heat are currently produced there, mainly from chaffed woodchips, which can be considered a regional contribution to CO2 reduction and a national contribution to the Energiewende (Germany’s proposed transition to a sustainable energy economy).

After lunch, the mayor of Elzach, Roland Tibi, gave the group a warm welcome and an interesting overview of his town’s energy production. He also mentioned the potential for conflict, created by the different interests of environmental advocates on the one hand and the opportunities of ‘ideal sites’ for wind power plant construction on the other.

The last stop of the excursion was the municipal electricity utilities of Elzach. Martin Schätzle, responsible for the water supply there, showed the students around and allowed them valuable insights into water-supply organization for a town like Elzach as well as into the turbines of the facility.

Many thanks go to Hesso for organizing this exciting excursion – hopefully, many of the participants will put the experience to good use in their future careers at energy facilities!

(If you would like to read a German version of this article in a local newspaper webpage, please click <link http: www.badische-zeitung.de elzach eine-enorm-erlebnisreiche-energie-exkursion-nach-elzach external-link-new-window external link in new>here.)