Kirsten Fust is supposed to save Hamburg’s energy supply

When the boss of the Hamburger Energiewerke was young, eco-movements still rebelled against nuclear power. Today, the electrical engineer is responsible for climate protection.

ZKirsten Fust brought a sponge as big as a loaf of bread to the press conference. The technical director of Hamburger Energiewerke likes to use the comparison with everyday objects when she has to explain things that have not previously been part of general knowledge.

The sponge stands for a process to save heat from the summer into the winter and in this way to make the district heating supply more climate-friendly – in technical terms it is about a hydrothermal aquifer storage, which Hamburg is now testing.

Drilling has been going on at the Tiefstack power plant since December 30th. In a few weeks, one should presumably come across the porous layer that Fust symbolizes with her sponge, 1,300 meters lower: The reservoir is to be built there, which could keep 100,000 cubic meters of water warm for months.