Lucerne relies on energy from the lake
The city of Lucerne and the energy supplier ewl want to cover more than half of their future heating requirements with energy from Lake Lucerne and district heating. Five possible locations for the lake energy centres have now been selected.
The city of Lucerne and the local supplier energie wasser luzern(ewl) want to work together to create opportunities to cover part of the city’s heating requirements with energy from Lake Lucerne. According to a press release, the aim of switching to lake energy is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from gas, oil, petrol, diesel and paraffin to zero by 2040.
In order to achieve this goal, the partners have considered possible locations for mostly underground energy centres. From a selection of 100 possible sites, five have emerged from the preliminary process: Three sites are on the left bank of the lake, one each on the right bank and in the Würzenbach supply area.
Following extensive analysis, these sites were found to be the most suitable. In addition to the energy yield, ownership and criteria such as nature conservation and social impact were also taken into account. Urban planning and feasibility studies should be available by mid-2025. Alternative locations will be announced if there are too many conflicts of interest.
“It was therefore crucial to involve municipal and cantonal authorities as well as various nature conservation and planning associations in the search for suitable locations,” said Martin Arnold, member of the Executive Board and Head of Realisation at ewl, in the press release. “In this way, we were able to take the various interests into account and harmonise them.”