In a village in Upper Bavaria, a piece of technology history will be written this autumn. And this in a field that is politically more explosive than probably any other topic in Germany: heating. In Hohenwart, a municipality with just under 5000,<> inhabitants south of Ingolstadt, a group of older buildings is to be heated solely with climate-friendly green hydrogen instead of natural gas for the first time in Germany with the start of the heating season in October.
Marcus Theurer
Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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"We want to show that heating with hydrogen works in practice and that it can be a good alternative to heat pumps," says Marcus Böske, head of the gas network operator Energie Südbayern. Ten households and a carpenter's shop are taking part in the one-and-a-half-year pilot project. The heating systems for this are supplied by Vaillant, and the green hydrogen is delivered by special tankers and fed into a string of the local gas grid.
Normally, only a small circle of experts would have taken notice of the hydrogen experiment in the Bavarian province. But times are not normal. Since Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) and Construction Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) presented the draft for a reform of the Building Energy Act in March, millions of German homeowners from Flensburg to Berchtesgaden have been in turmoil. This is because the Heating Act could result in additional costs for owners in the five-digit range.
From January onwards, the installation of pure oil and gas heating systems in German boiler rooms is to be prohibited for climate protection. At best, they should be permitted as a supplement to climate-friendly heating systems. Habeck favors the electrically operated heat pump as a replacement, but it is much more expensive than conventional fossil heating systems. In addition, poorly insulated old buildings may incur additional costs for new radiators and better thermal insulation of the building.
This is where Hohenwart's hydrogen model project comes into play. This is because gas heating systems should also be permitted in the future under one condition: namely, if it is ensured that they will no longer be fired with natural gas in the longer term, but with climate-friendly hydrogen. The requirements that must be met for this are meticulously listed in the draft law.
"Extremely restrictive requirements"
"Hydrogen heating systems are a great thing for owners of old buildings," says Marcus Böske of Energie Südbayern, promoting his pilot project. The owners would only have to flange a new device instead of the old gas boiler, which also runs on hydrogen. The new systems will be installed in half a day, Böske promises. According to manufacturers such as Bosch and Vaillant, hydrogen heating systems are only marginally more expensive than conventional gas heating systems.
In Berlin's traffic light federal government, the coalition partner FDP in particular has vehemently advocated "openness to technology" – i.e. for hydrogen heating to be given a chance as an alternative to heat pumps. Opponents, on the other hand, consider it to be a climate policy deception. So far, there are hardly any production capacities for climate-friendly hydrogen worldwide. It is unclear whether it will be available in sufficient quantities and at a reasonable cost. So if you rely on it, you have to be brave: If things go wrong, you buy a so-called "H2-ready heating system", only to find out in a few years that the hydrogen for it is missing or horrendously expensive. The Federal Council's Environment Committee therefore called this week for hydrogen heating to be removed from the law altogether.
The energy suppliers, on the other hand, have a completely different point of criticism: "The requirements for hydrogen heating are extremely restrictive in the draft law. From this it is clear that the Ministry of Economics basically does not want that," says Gerald Linke, CEO of the industry association DVGW. The legislative plans urgently need to be improved.