Quick profile
Thüga Aktiengesellschaft, a public limited company, headquartered in Munich, is a holding company and specialist consultancy firm, anchored in local government. Established in 1867, it has shareholdings, as a minority shareholder, in around 100 municipal energy and water management companies nationwide. The respective majority shareholders are town councils and municipalities.
Together with its partners, Thüga forms the largest municipal association of local and regional utility companies in Germany – the Thüga Group. Altogether, with their over 21,000 employees nationwide, the Thüga partners supply over four million customers with electricity, two million customers with gas, and one million customers with drinking water. Their joint aim is to shape the future of local government-related provision of energy and water.
Activities in the real-world laboratory
In the “Green Heating” sub-project, Thüga and Heide Municipal Utilities plan to store up to 20 per cent hydrogen in a grid section of Heide Municipal Utilities. Their goal: to demonstrate in practice, that the components of a modern existing gas grid comply with all the requirements for storing hydrogen. They demonstrate that the heat supply can successively be converted to renewable gases. The project moreover provides empirical values on the supply characteristics of the new source of energy on the heating market.
Long-term vision
100 per cent renewable gases in the gas distribution grid. The rapid decarbonisation of the heating market is an absolute necessity for achieving the climate protection targets laid down. Thüga is therefore committed, in the heating market, to rapid decarbonisation, independent of the technology or application used.
The first step involves admixing hydrogen (and other carbon-neutral gases), as promoted in the “Green Heating” sub-project with green H2 under real conditions. In 2021, Thüga made a proposal to the government regarding the introduction of a greenhouse gas reduction quota for gas, which will result in an additional well over 20 million tonnes of CO2 per annum being saved by the year 2030 – in a manner that is socially acceptable, affordable and provides a reliable supply of gas. From Thüga’s perspective, that is the best way to now rapidly promote the heat transition.