Initgroup

Utility | DIN Forsyning

Developing the automation standard for the

central heating of the future.

The Danish utility company, DIN Forsyning aims to supply green central heating to the approximately 25,000 homes, companies and institutions in its distribution area. With the company’s new large seawater based heat pump station and a biomass boiler plant – both equipped with automation solutions developed by Init – DIN Forsyning is well on its way to meet that goal.

DIN Forsyning supplies central heating to about 100,000 inhabitants in Western Jutland in Denmark. Historically, the company has bought about half of the district heating from Ørsted (Denmark’s largest utility company), which has been produced from excess heat from the coal-fired Esbjerg Power Station. With a planned closedown of the Esbjerg Power Plant on 1 April 2023, DIN Forsyning needed to establish its own production of district heating.

One SCADA system to rule them all

Init has developed the automation standard at PLC and SCADA level for the entire utility setup, which entails Denmark’s largest heat pump system, a biomass boiler plant and an electrical boiler plant. Accordingly, the large project encompasses many different system and component suppliers and it was a top priority for DIN Forsyning to gather everything in one overall SCADA system.

Combining technologies for green utility solutions

The backbone of the new central heating production is a 50 MW seawater heat pump system. The pumps will suck about 4,000 litres of sea water per second and will produce approximately 235,000 MWh heat per year. The heat pumps are placed in a new building with a total size of 2,500 m2 and a height of 15 meters.

To fulfill the heat demand of supply in the future heating production setup, a 60 MW biomass boiler – based on 100 % sustainable wood chips – will be built to operate in parallel with 50MW heat pump. The wood chip plant will have large stocks of sustainable wood chips which can be refilled as needed. The biomass used will be certified and meet the Danish industry agreement about sustainable, wood based biomass.

As more sustainable options emerge going forward, DIN Forsyning aims to reduce and eventually stop the use of biomass and fossil fuels. The utility company plans to achieve a 100% fossil free value chain by 2030.