The Federal Association of the German Heating Industry (BDH) and the Institute for Heat and Mobility (IWO) are jointly using a new variant of greenhouse gas-reduced heating oil.
As part of a practical test lasting at least two years, a total of 21 residential buildings are supplied with a so-called R33 fuel combination, one-third of which consists of components with reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to test their readiness for use.
Oil heating systems
“There are around 5.5 million oil heating systems across Germany. For technical or financial reasons, many of these heaters cannot easily be replaced by other heating systems. And that's not even necessary, because oil-heated buildings can also achieve the climate targets. By increasing efficiency - for example, through modernization with condensing technology and building insulation - as well as the installation of hybrid technology, fuel consumption can be greatly reduced. The remaining quantities could then be covered by the use of increasingly greenhouse gas-reduced fuels,” explains IWO managing director Adrian Willig.
“Oil condensing boilers often remain a suitable solution for the urgently needed replacement of the almost 4.8 million outdated, inefficient oil boilers, especially since oil condensing boilers labeled with efficiency class A are in many cases combined with renewable solar thermal energy. If such a system is also operated with greenhouse gas-reduced liquid energy sources, it has an excellent CO2 food print,” says BDH General Manager, Andreas Lücke.
Heating appliance industry
The fuel mix used will be expanded by a 7 percent share of esterified bio-oils, so-called FAME
"Assuming availability and suitable framework conditions, such systems can make an important contribution to achieving the climate goals." 26 percent of the R33 fuel combination used in the new joint project consists of hydrogenated residues, so-called waste-based biofuels of the second generation, the production of which does not compete with food cultivation.
IWO has been using such paraffinic fuels as an admixture to classic heating oil in a small number of its own model projects since 2017. In the project, which has now been started together with the heating appliance industry, the fuel mix used will be expanded by a 7 percent share of esterified bio-oils, so-called FAME. Since the two renewable fuel components together have a share of 33 percent, the mixture is also known as R33 fuel. Should this combination also prove successful in practice.
Component-Related questions
The project is scheduled to run until 2022, with the option to extend it by one year. The companies Bosch Thermotechnik with Buderus, Dehoust, Viessmann, Weishaupt, and Wolf support the project with their own field test systems, other companies such as Danfoss, GOK, Hoval, and Suntec with know-how and with component-related questions.
The practical test is closely networked with a transnational project of the European umbrella association of the heating industry EHI (Association of the European Heating Industry) and the European heating oil association Eurofuel.
