GEA is supporting the district heating supply of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, with the delivery of four large screw compressor heat pumps including a new high-efficiency unit. GEA's customer, AS Utilitas Tallinn, will use the three XB screw compressors and a new L XHP 70 bar high-efficiency screw compressor to support the supply of several hundreds of households in Tallinn in a first step, thus ensuring security of supply and become further independent of fossils. Around 24 megawatts per year can be supplied thanks to GEA's screw compressors.
GEA is supplying AS Utilitas Tallinn with four heat pumps. This will give several hundred households security of supply as far as district heating is concerned. (Photo: AS Utilitas Tallinn)
The official commissioning of the units supplied by GEA will be in the third quarter of 2023. The announcement was made by GEA, the machinery and equipment manufacturer and solution provider, at Chillventa 2022 in Nuremberg, Germany.
Utilitas is the largest renewable energy producer in Estonia as well as largest district heating operator in the country connecting around a third of the Estonian district heating customers. Utilitas heats 18.2 million square meters of buildings across Estonia via 556 kilometers of district heating networks and supplies more than 2.1 TWh of heat to around 177,000 households and municipal and commercial customers.
Many arguments in favor of GEA
GEA scored points with Utilitas with decades of global experience in refrigeration and heating technology and in the use of ammonia as a natural refrigerant. This was complemented by highly individual and customer-specific planning and work – and the perfect fit of the GEA components.
Background information
District Heating
District heating is the most widespread type of heating in Estonia, with district heating accounting for at least 60 percent of heat energy supply. District heating is best option for covering the heating need of urban buildings. It allows to use the best heat production technologies from fuels that are otherwise difficult to use, such as wood chips or household waste, as well as utilization of the residual heat of effective cogeneration plants where heat and electricity are produced together.
Environmentally sustainable district heating is available to customers in the quantity and at the time needed. In a modern district heating system, customers do not need to worry because homes are securely supplied with heat and need no other additional heating solutions. District heating service is with high security of supply and safe to use.
District heating also has a significant role in reducing the carbon footprint of energy use:
- A building which consumes heat produced from renewable energy sources promotes climate-friendly energy production and helps to reduce the emission of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
- Production of electricity in cogeneration plants decreases the need for producing electricity from fossil fuels.
- Energy efficient district heating substitutes the need of electricity to be spent on heating buildings and therefore decreases the consumption and need of producing electricity.
This is how the Utilitas district heating system in Tallinn works
Heat energy in buildings is consumed through central heating stations, which are usually located in the basement of the building. The substation receives the heat energy and distributes it in the building based on the temperatures and controls set in the substation. In the central heating station, the building owner can set the internal temperatures of the rooms in the building and other required parameters. The amount of heat energy consumed is measured using the heat meter installed in the building.
All Utilitas customers are connected to the remote reading system, with the help of which the heat energy consumption can be measured even more accurately than before. A system with constant data connection enables faster detection of failures, losses and leaks, as well as control of the operation of the entire heat energy network. Utilitas has consistently invested in both technology and fuel exchange in order to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. As an annual average, more than 2/3 of Utilitas’ heat production uses more than 2/3 of biomass and waste heat. For covering the peak demand, Utilitas also uses natural gas, but has an investment plan to become carbon neutral and stop using fossil fuels by 2030 the latest.
GEA technology with great advantages
Heat pumps can replace fossil heat generation, for example the classic boiler, up to a certain temperature level depending on the refrigerant used. A heat pump is based on the same cycle as a refrigeration system – only at a correspondingly higher temperature and pressure level. The GEA Heating & Refrigeration Technologies Division offers compression heat pumps with the completely natural, climate-neutral and highly efficient refrigerant ammonia up to a target temperature of 95 °C in the power range from several hundred kilowatts to around ten megawatts per unit. Thanks to its high energy efficiency and the use of (waste) heat sources, a heat pump is generally at least a factor of three more sustainable than a combustion boiler, even when using pure coal-fired electricity, for example, and accordingly consumes only one-third of primary energy. In addition to decades of experience in refrigeration technology and with the refrigerant ammonia, GEA has also been intensively involved in heat pump applications for around 15 years and has already delivered more than 160 systems (as of September 2022) around the world. GEA's heat pump portfolio is among the most efficient on the market and is continuously being developed.
Contact
Dr. Michael Golek
Media Relations
GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft
Ulmenstrasse 99
40476
Düsseldorf
Germany
+49 211 9136-0
About GEA
GEA is one of the world’s largest suppliers of systems and components to the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries.
The international technology group, founded in 1881, focuses on machinery and plants, as well as advanced process technology, components and comprehensive services. For instance, every second pharma separator for essential healthcare products such as vaccines or novel biopharmaceuticals is produced by GEA. In food, every fourth package of pasta or every third chicken nugget are processed with GEA technology.
With more than 18,000 employees, the group generated sales of about EUR 5.5 billion in more than 150 countries in the 2025 fiscal year. GEA plants, processes, components and services enhance the efficiency and sustainability of customers’ production. They contribute significantly to the reduction of CO2 emissions, plastic usage and food waste. In doing so, GEA makes a key contribution toward a sustainable future, in line with the company’s purpose: ”Engineering for a better world.”
GEA is listed on the German DAX, the European STOXX® Europe 600 Index and is also a constituent of the leading sustainability indices DAX 50 ESG, MSCI Global Sustainability and Dow Jones Best-in-Class World.
