Hamburg: Wedel power plant stays on the grid longer

The coal-fired power plant in Wedel supplies Hamburg with district heating. The old and dilapidated plant is to be replaced by the new Hafen Energy Park. But it is not happening as quickly as planned.

The Wedel coal-fired power plant will have to supply district heating customers in western Hamburg with heat for longer than planned.

The reason is delays in the construction of the new energy park Hafen on the Dradenau, which was supposed to replace the aging power plant just across the state border in Schleswig-Holstein by the end of 2025 and put it into reserve operation, as Christian Heine, spokesman for the management of Hamburger Energiewerke, told the German Press Agency. “We have construction delays of four months.” But the schedule to start commissioning at the end of 2025 is set.”

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Power plant in Wedel will remain active until 2026

However, due to the construction delays, it will no longer be possible for the energy park to take over the heat supply in the 2025/2026 heating period, which is already underway, as the trouble-free operation of the new, highly efficient plant must first be ensured. “Afterwards, we will be able to go into reserve with the Wedel power plant.”

View of the construction site of the Hafen energy park on the Dradenau. picture alliance/dpa/Georg Wendt

The reserve operation is necessary to ensure security of supply in the event of adjustments in the energy park. “Wedel can only be shut down when everything is running reliably in the Hafen energy park,” says Heine. It is not yet possible to say exactly when the coal-fired power plant can be shut down completely.

Until now, the Senate had promised spring 2026. Hamburg will phase out coal for heating by 2030. The Tiefstack heating plant in the east of Hamburg is also to be replaced by then.

The Hafen Energy Park is the heart of Hamburg’s heat transition

The Hafen Energy Park, which brings together various heat sources, is the heart of the heat transition. Waste heat is used from nearby industrial plants, the Rugenberger Damm waste incineration plant and the wastewater treatment plant at the Dradenau sewage treatment plant.

The heat will be stored in a 50-meter-high thermal tank containing water at 98 degrees. A highly efficient gas and steam turbine plant will generate additional heat when required and also electricity using combined heat and power. In the future, 55 percent of the district heating will come from climate-neutral sources.

“This Energy Park Hafen project is extremely complex,” says Heine. “There are an incredible number of factories working here at the same time. And the delay is due to the orchestration of all these construction measures.”

Crises and inflation also cause costs for energy parks to rise

Crisis-related supply chain disruptions and inflation have also increased the costs of the ambitious project. The original budget for the cogeneration plant on the Dradenau alone was 600 million euros. “This cost block already includes a very high risk provision.

But this has already been used up – due to the Ukraine crisis and inflation, which have led to higher personnel costs as well as higher material costs in the steel sector.” By 2028, Hamburg will invest a total of around 2.85 billion euros in the heat transition.

Construction progress on the Dradenau becomes clear

The construction progress on the Dradenau can be clearly seen after 28 months – especially when driving on the motorway from the south into the Elbe tunnel: The most striking thing is the brown-rusty heat storage tank that rises 50 metres into the air – now almost completely full of fully salted water.

“It is currently filled with around 47,000 cubic metres,” says the plant's planning manager, Andreas Buchheim. “For a simple reason: before you start insulating the tank, you will make sure that the welds are tight.” And it is tight.” Completely filled with 50 million litres of water, it could store 2000 megawatt hours of thermal energy.

More than 20,000 cubic metres of concrete have already been used and almost 1,500 tonnes of structural steel have been installed – up to 400 tonnes will be added per week in the near future, according to him. The two large gas turbines and a steam generator are already in place in the machine hall.

Around a third of the new Elbe district heating tunnel completed

In order to bring the heat from the energy park in the port into the district heating network on the northern bank of the Elbe, “Hermine” has been drilling through the muddy subsoil since November last year. “Hermine” stands for “Hamburger Energiewerke Röhre Mit Neuer Energie”.

The tunnel boring machine is now at tunnel meter 380. “That is just behind Seemannshöft,” says project manager Dirk Lassen-Petersen. This means that a third of the route has been completed and the lowest point of the tunnel boring has been overcome. “From now on, we are heading upwards,” he said.

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The target of the drilling is the Hindenburg Park in Othmarschen. “At the moment, Hermine is managing about eight to ten meters a day. We'll be here by the end of this year,” says Lasse-Petersen at the construction site on the Elbchaussee, where a 34-meter-deep target shaft with a diameter of 13 meters has been dug into the Elbe bank. “We don't need such a large shaft for the two lines.” But the tunnel boring machine has to go through here because it can't drive backwards.”

Once the energy park is connected, the target shaft in Hindenburg Park will also be invisible, he promises. “At the end there will be a lid on it and all these piles of sand will be removed. Then we will add topsoil and restore the park – and then everything will be nice again.” (dpa)