Volkswagen engines to heat your home

German energy supplier LichtBlick's deal with Volkswagen bears first fruit with the rollout of a smart new low-emissions sub-grid
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German energy supplier LichtBlick begun rolling out its Volkswagen-powered domestic generator network in Hamburg in what it describes as an "innovative, intelligent power and heat supply concept".

Using a modified version of the 2.0-litre petrol four used in Volkswagen's Touran and Caddy models, the system is designed to store heat, a natural by-product of internal combustion, for room and water heating. LichtBlick's calculations show the heat demand threshold to make such domestic power plants viable is about 40,000 kW/h. A single plant would comfortably service a very large home, a building with several flats, small commercial premises and public and social facilities like schools or churches.

The deal with customers is a kind of win-win: LichtBlick retains ownership of the plant and rents 'boiler-room' space from the customer, who stumps up an installation fee 'starting at 5,000 euros'.

If that sounds like a lot of money, it's worth noting LichtBlick estimates their energy consumption will drop by up to 40 percent over a conventional old system. It also buys removal of the old gas heating system, the installation of the new power plant and all servicing, maintenance and repairs.

The company is keeping the early rollout phase close to home in Hamburg – by year's end, it will have about 30 plants operating in and around the city. The early customer base is made up of private building owners and Hamburg's city cleaning department. LichtBlick has already signed deals with a major housing association and a child-care group, and will begin installing plants in their facilities in early 2011.

The company's long-term plan is to network 100,000 of the plants into a massive decentralised virtual power facility with the capacity to match two atomic power plants – a low-emission top-up to mitigate fluctuations power from wind farms and solar facilities.

To that end, its sales and marketing people are already pitching to the cities of Berlin, Bremen, Essen, Leipzig, and Stuttgart, and the wider regions of Braunschweig, Wolfsburg and Salzgitter. The latter two shouldn't be too difficult: Volkswagen is headquartered in Wolfsburg and the engines are produced in Salzgitter, where VW has had a 25-unit test network in operation since the beginning of 2010. If all goes according to plan, other areas will follow from 2011.

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