Heating with biogas

In 2014, VAUDE consumed 909,292 kWh for the heating of buildings at the company headquarters in Tettnang-Obereisenbach including the factory outlet.

Gas consumption

Since October 2013, VAUDE has used certified biogas exclusively at its company headquarters in Tettnang – Obereisenbach. This gas comes 100 percent from sugar beet processing in Hungary. The gas is physically used directly at the sugar factory as process heat, thus reducing the use of conventional natural gas in the supply network. The percentage of renewable energies in gas consumption at VAUDE in 2014 was 100 percent.

An important technical measure for reducing energy consumption was the conversion of oil heating to energy-efficient gas heaters in 2011.

In order to consider the thermal energy consumption independently from outside temperatures and the duration of the heating season, we have aligned the consumption values with the regional degree days for Ravensburg (GTZspez). This is 3,346 according to the Energy Agency Ravensburg. This results in a weather-adjusted heating energy consumption of 1,118,568 kWh for the entire site including our factory outlet.

Physically, we only needed 917,868 kWh gas for heating in 2014, which means 209,276 kWh less that would have been expected taking the calculation of ambient temperatures and the number of our square feet of our buildings into consideration.

This corresponds to 7 percent less energy consumption for heating than in 2013.

Consumption for heating

With the conversion and energy-saving renovation of the office building, we anticipate a reduction of the heating energy demand in the future. One of our next steps will be to modernize the factory outlet, which also has a heating energy-saving goal.