February 2022 is Mayer & Cie.’s target date for taking its two new natural gas-fired combined heat and power plants (CHPs) into service. Excavators were at work for over six months on-site and even outside the works site to carry out the preliminaries: connecting the different buildings to a the gas line and the individual heating systems with each other. They were separate because the circular knitting machine manufacturer has grown and added to its facilities over the decades. The works site now covers an area of around 35,000 square meters.
“We have been working since 2013 to make our headquarters energy supply more efficient and more appropriate to our needs,” says Heiko Hämmerle, the head of technical engineering at Mayer & Cie. Hämmerle has clear expectations of his new building services technology. He expects the combined heat and power plants with an output of 900 KW to meet between 80 and 90 per cent of the heating requirements of Mayer & Cie.’s Albstadt-Tailfingen works and its approximately 300 employees. The CHPs will also generate 50 per cent of the electricity used and, in the summer months, 50 per cent of the energy required for cooling. “In all that should save us around 380,000 litres of heating oil per year,” he says.
Mayer & Cie. is not only implementing its energy renovation as planned but has also won awards for doing so. Several years ago Baden-Württemberg state government named the family firm one of its Top 100 firms for resource efficiency.
Says Heiko Hämmerle, “The CHPs mark the completion of this award-winning concept. We will be delighted when we take them into service on schedule in February 2022.”