Galanta district heating

The district heating system of Galanta is owned and operated by Galantaterm s.r.o., a shareholding company owned by the Municipality of Galanta, Slovak Gas Company (SPP), Reykjavík Energy and Slovgeoterm a.s. The company was established in 1995 as the first company in Slovakia using geothermal energy for district heating. The project was partly financed by a loan from the Nordic Investment Bank.

Galanta is a small town of about 35.000 inhabitants and is situated about 50 km east of Bratislava the capital of Slovakia. The geothermal water, which is only mildly mineralized and suitable for direct use, replaces thermal energy from fossil fuelled boilers for space heating and domestic hot water for over 1.300 apartments, community buildings, and the town´s hospital. The existing hot water boilers serve as 100% reserve and peak load source.

Two geothermal production wells, which together can provide about 78°C hot water at the rate of 35 l/s of sustainable flow, are exploited with deep well pumps placed at 100 m depth. The pumps also maintain sufficient static pressure throughout the geothermal system to suppress formation of scaling.

The thermal demand (power) for space heating amounts to 6.500 kW in the housing estate and 5.400 kW in the hospital buildings. Heating of domestic hot tap water requires about 1.200 kW thermal power.  Altogether the annual energy demand sums up to 35 GWh/year, of which about 95% is replaced by geothermal energy.

Lineshaft driven deep well pumps with surface mounted electric hollow shaft motor, similar to those having been used in geothermal wells in Iceland for decades, were installed in the two geothermal production wells. In the heat exchanger station, the geothermal hot water passes in sequence through titanium plate heat exchangers and delivers thermal energy to the different heating systems; namely a radiator heating system of the hospital (90/70°C), radiator heating system of the apartments (77/52°C) and finally to a ceiling panel heating of the hospital buildings (52/42°C).

Verkís services was feasibility study, concept design, design and tender documents, project planning and management, review and approval of working drawings, construction supervision, commissioning and start-up.