Rather than burn our future, we have chosen to use climate-friendly heating in our buildings. To promote this heat shift, we are working on various ideas and measures. Basically, when oil-fired heating systems reach the end of their life cycle, we do not simply replace them, but we put climate-friendly alternatives into operation instead.
For representative sites, we create energy supply concepts and derive an overall plan on how to convert all our existing heating systems accordingly. Attractive alternatives to systems that burn fossil fuels include heat pumps and biomass systems.
Green heating systems for climate-friendly heat
At many sites, we are already saving a great deal of CO2 with alternative heating systems. At the Munich-Pasing maintenance depot, for example, we have been using geothermal energy since 2017. Combined heat and power (CHP) plants offer another alternative, if they are operated with climate-friendly fuels such as biogas. Such CHP systems can cogenerating both electricity and heat at once.
In 2024, we replaced a total of 19 old heating systems at our prioritized locations with more climate-friendly alternatives such as heat pumps or biomass heating systems. At the Osnabrück and Hamburg Stellingen stations, for example, we have converted from heating oil and natural gas to heat pumps. We have also started planning the conversion at over 20 other locations.
