Feeding Jinan’s heating network with heat from wastewater

Jinan is home to 6 million inhabitants and is the capital of Shandong province. Located in a historically industrial region, the province has the highest energy consumption in China. Coal remains the primary energy source, accounting for 81% of its total primary energy consumption in 2014.

Chinese authorities have adopted a proactive policy for diversifying energy sources and achieving energy efficiency in order to reduce local pollution and the energy footprint of cities. Recovering wastewater for use as a heat source is a method that remains underdeveloped in China but offers interesting prospects.

AFD is supporting this project aimed at building decentralized collective heating systems by recovering heat from treated effluent from two water treatment plants. This will provide heating for residential buildings and cooling systems for commercial buildings in two districts of Jinan. The project will cover a total area of approximately 3 million m².

In Da Wei district, a new power station will replace the current heating system, which is fueled by a coal-fired cogeneration power plant. In Hua Shan district, north-east of the city, 21 energy stations and 42 water-to-water heat pump units will recover heat from the wastewater from the local water treatment plant. The project also includes the construction of a 7.7-km pipe network, the installation of a 36-km heating network and automation of the network.

This project follows on from a first program supported by AFD in Jinan from 2011, which had enabled to renovate and improve the energy performance of the city's urban heating networks.

• Reduce the carbon intensity of heating networks, with an estimated annual decrease of 105,989 tons of greenhouse gas emissions;

• Reduce coal consumption by 38,864 tons per year and local pollutant emissions by decommissioning existing individual boiler rooms and stoves;

• Improve air quality and living conditions for the inhabitants of Jinan.