Wiener Stadtwerke Annual Report 2012

GUGLE (Green Urban Gate towards Leadership
in sustainable Energy)
The main focus of the GUGLE project is the thermal renovation
of existing buildings in the 9th and 14th Districts of Vienna,
with the intention being for these buildings to serve as a
commercial model for larger-scale implementation. Further
aspects include decentralised regenerative production
(photovoltaic), intelligent management and regulation (facility
management for energy) as well as associated financing
models. The aim is to implement these programmes based on
four case studies of residential buildings with decentralised or
centralised heat production, namely public-sector buildings
(e.g. nurseries and old-people‘s homes) and major consumers
with an energy mix (e.g. hospitals).
District cooling
The construction of the district cooling centre at Schottenring,
a facility with a refrigeration capacity of 13.1 megawatts, took
place in the course of building an underground car park. The
district cooling centre was commissioned in December 2012.
The ongoing expansion of the district cooling network is
allowing new customers to be connected.
On the site of the Central Railway Station (Hauptbahnhof)
which is currently under construction, a further district cooling
centre with an output of around 20 megawatts is being built
which, from 2014, will also being supplying new customers.
On the grounds of the Rudolfstiftung hospital, a further district
cooling centre is also in the final stages of construction.
Although already partially operational since autumn 2012,
when completed this facility with have a total refrigeration
capacity of 7.8 megawatts.
Infrastructure expansion
Around 320,000 people live in the supply area of Wien Energie
Stromnetz north of the Danube. As a result of the Seestadt
Aspern development, the population in this area is continuing
to rise. Since May 2012, around 140 employees of Wien
Energie Stromnetz have been based at a new facility in Kagran
from which they can serve this supply area more efficiently.
The new building is an energy-efficient flagship property with
innovative and ecologically advanced energy supply
technologies.
On 6 September 2012, the building and operational
application for a 380 kilovolt cable from the transformer station
in Simmering to the south-west transformer station was
submitted to Municipal Department 64 (MA 64 – Rechtliche
Bau-, Energie-, Eisenbahn- und Luftfahrtangelegenheiten) in
line with the relevant provincial legislation (Wiener Starkstromwegegesetz).
An expert from MA 22 (Environmental Protection
Department) carried out an on-site inspection on 25 October
2012 in accordance with the Vienna Nature Conservation Act
(Naturschutzgesetz) associated with the application for the
approval of this 380-kV cable.
The new 110/20-kV transformer station at Essling was
completed during the financial year and went on-line in early
20 Annual Report 2012 | Consolidated Management Report
October 2012. This facility supplies the Flugfeld Aspern urban
development area and the extension of the underground to
Aspern.
The new transformer station at Messe was also largely
completed during the financial year and commissioned in
autumn 2012. This transformer station next to the Krieau
trotting track, in an area of future high energy consumption,
will supply new urban districts such as the area around the
University of Economics, Viertel 2, the Donaumarina and
Waterfront Vienna.
Feeding-in wind power
Appropriate network plans, a flat-rate pricing structure for
network access as well as investment and expansion plans have
all been developed due to the extremely high level of demand
from potential suppliers of wind power. This involves
establishing modular, centralised feed-in facilities for wind
power north and south of Vienna in cooperation with Austrian
Power Grid (APG).
Studies have also been initiated to investigate the forecast
increase in the number of decentralised and local feeding-in of
electricity from photovoltaic plants as well as the targeted
expansion of electricity networks, particularly at key hubs.
Smart metering pilot project
Currently, it is only possible to measure power consumption on
the basis of the difference between annual meter readings.
Smart metering will also allow customers to determine their
power consumption in future via an internet portal.
On the basis of an EU Directive and Austrian legislation, all
households in the supply area served by Wien Energie
Stromnetz will have access to a smart meter by 2019. This
technology replaces conventional electricity meters and makes
consumption transparent for consumers. While meter readings
currently take place annually, smart metering will make it
possible to measure consumption at any time and provide this
information to network operators once per day. Smart
metering provides network operators with exact details of
network capacity. The integration of renewable sources of
energy such as wind power and photovoltaic in particular will
also be possible to a greater extent. Special electricity tariffs
for certain times of the day are also conceivable. Particularly
inexpensive tariffs for off-peak periods could encourage
customers to change their consumption patterns. This would
potentially even allow some of the fossil-fuel-fired peak-load
power stations to be taken off-line.
Wien Energie Stromnetz is performing a pilot project to
prepare itself optimally for the roll-out. The preparation work
and the installation of 3,000 smart meters at customer sites
will, for example, allow various transmission technologies in
urban and rural areas as well as new and older properties,
different meter types, new IT systems and their integration into
the existing IT systems to all be tested.
The SMP Customer Feedback project involves customer
surveys as a basis for optimisations prior to the roll-out set to
begin in 2014.