GRAFENWOEHR, Germany -- The U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr has been searching high and low for ways to conserve energy and make the transition to using more renewable sources of energy in accordance with the Installation Management Command Campaign Plan.
Measures, such as lowering room temperature during unoccupied hours, reducing excessive street lighting levels, or installing motion sensors and timers have already been implemented at Grafenwoehr. For larger projects such as total energy upgrades of buildings, projects have been developed with the estimated funds requested.
Currently, three large photo voltaic systems are being installed at Rose Barracks and two on Main Post with a total investment of $1.5 million. Additionally, a contractor is installing solar collectors for the generation of hot water at the Main Post Fitness Center.
Recently, more than 20 participants, mostly members of the garrison's Energy Tiger Team, toured several facilities in Neustadt County to gather additional ideas for maximizing the garrison's energy efficiency.
Like USAG Grafenwoehr, the County of Neustadt is pressing hard to explore and implement renewable energies, County Commissioner Simon Wittmann said. The county's goal is to show a carbon dioxide neutral balance on county-owned facilities through the use of locally produced energy sources.
In Eschenbach, an innovative vegetable oil cogeneration plant produces electricity for sale while the cooling water from the generators is directed to heat exchangers for heating an adjacent school. In addition to these measures, a wood chip boiler was installed last December, which increases the total capacity of the heating plant. As a result, a stand-by oil fired boiler only needs to be activated during heating peak demands (a few very cold days during the winter season).
In order to optimize the system, an obsolete fuel oil tank was remodeled to be used as a hot water storage tank. During hotter days, passively heated hot water can be stored here and used during colder days. The system is being monitored by an energy monitoring and control system, which transmits all data to the county office at Neustadt/WN. The fuel sources, vegetable oil and wood chips, are both locally generated renewable sources coming from this region, Wittmann said. He suggested that the USAG Grafenwoehr could also benefit from the wood chip resources potentially available from the Grafenwoehr Training Area if the garrison had similar systems in place.
Participants also toured the Geological Center in Windischeschenbach and visited a biogas generation plant in Weissenbrunn. In Windischeschenbach, Dr. Frank Holzfoerster, head of the geological center at the "Continental Deep Drilling Well," explained continental deep drilling in detail. The group climbed the drilling tower and learned about this challenging project, which includes the earth's deepest drilling well, produced for scientific and research purposes.
During the visit of the exhibition facility, Holzfoerster answered the Tiger Team's "burning" question: Is using geothermal energy economical for heating facilities at USAG Grafenwoehr'
The facility the team was standing in was heated with geothermal energy through the placement of 100-meter deep wells serving ground loop heat pumps. The temperature difference between the bottom and the well comes to only 2-3 degrees Celsius, but this is sufficient to generate heating water with a temperature of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) by means of a heat pump. With a low temperature heating system, i. e. a floor heating system, a building can be kept warm economically.
Heat and electricity is produced by forward thinking farmers within the region. The last stop of the "Green Energy Tour" was in Weissenbrunn, which is close to Kohlberg where the group met an innovative farmer. Christian Lehner operates a biogeneration gas plant he designed and constructed in order to diversify his market. With the waste produced by his 100 cows, he fuels his plant and generates methane gas. The technology uses a natural process where bacteria feed on the organics and produce the burnable gas which is being collected in large concrete and fabric container.
The methane gas produced is used to fuel two generators with a total capacity of 340 kilowatts. The electricity is sold to the local power supplier Eon with the exhaust heat from the generators fed into heat exchangers where hot water provides the heat for the entire adjacent village.
At the end of the tour the experts agreed: Cows are an unlikely source for biomass energy production at USAG Grafenwoehr, however, the use of grass clippings and other biowaste for biomass energy production should be explored.
Editor's Note: Werner Ohla is the Utilities Branch chief at U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr's Directorate of Public Works.
Social Sharing