OMV Schwechat Refinery will use industrial waste heat to provide Vienna International Airport with environmentally-friendly heating.
Expected to be operational in early 2022, the heating system will reduce the airport’s CO2 emissions by 85% compared with 2012 figures. The airport intends to make its operations carbon neutral by the end of 2023.
The expansion of the OMV Schwechat district heating hub is subsidised by funds from the environmental stimulus programme from Austria’s Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology.
Günther Ofner, airport CEO and member of the management board of Flughafen Wien, said: “Switching to environmentally friendly district heating is a major milestone on our path to becoming a ‘green airport’ with net-zero operations. Other factors in achieving this include our photovoltaic plant with 30MW capacity and around 400 electric vehicles.”
With supply via a direct connection to the OMV Schwechat Refinery, the airport and its 150 buildings will have district heating piped in directly. This will save around 21,000 metric tonnes of CO2 per year.
