Eneregio SOBOS

Eliciting, Analyzing and Using Geothermal Potential Locally

Global and national climate protection requirements demand a rapid phase-out of oil and natural gas in heat supply. The regions of Salzburg, Upper Austria, Berchtesgadener Land, Traunstein and Inntal in the neighboring countries of Austria and Germany offer great potential in the field of waste heat, heat sinks and deep geothermal energy. A detailed cross-border survey is not yet available. For this reason, the Regionalwerk Chiemgau-Rupertiwinkel, consisting of 30 municipalities in southeastern Bavaria, and the states of Upper Austria and Salzburg are working together on the present project to jointly address this deficit. The goal of SOBOS – an acronym for Southeast Bavaria (“Südostbayern”), Upper Austria (“Oberösterreich”) and Salzburg – is to analyze both the feasibility and the possible potential of a cross-border heating system and, based on this, to generate a roadmap with project proposals for decarbonization.

The project is funded by the European project CEF Energy 2021, which aims to increase cross-border cooperation in the field of renewable energies.

If the expected potential is confirmed, an increase of two terawatt hours per year can be expected from the district heating network. With regard to climate protection goals, the cross-border networking of heat sources from different processes with the help of a district heating network taps the geological potential in the regions and thus enables the year-round use of CO2-free energy to supply entire regions. The project helps to diversify the heat supply and reduce regional dependencies on fossil fuels, ultimately expanding independence from energy imports outside the EU.

The tasks of the Research Studio iSPACE of the RSA FG include, among others, the consolidation of the data, the spatial GIS-based representation of heat demand and supply in the neighboring regions both on the current status and forecasting for possible future scenarios, the analysis and localization of the regional potentials as well as the provision of the data and results in the form of web services.