Revolution adaptive – retrofitting with impact

Retrofit with impact: Greater efficiency through Revolution adaptive

Energy future in Unterägeri:
Biomass and innovation lead to independence

The Unterägeri Corporation is sending a strong signal for sustainable and independent energy supply and impressively demonstrating how forward thinking, regional resources, and state-of-the-art technology can go hand in hand.

The corporation combines water, building land, energy, and heat supply from a single source. With the aim of becoming energy and supply independent, Unterägeri is not only creating new residential complexes with their own electricity production, but also centralized, state-of-the-art heating centers based on biomass. At the heart of this success is the long-standing partnership with the Schmid company. A flagship project that can serve as a model for many communities.

Unterägeri becomes energy self-sufficient – a step with vision

The Unterägeri Corporation is pursuing an ambitious goal: to become energy self-sufficient while relying on regional resources. The corporation already produces its own electricity on its new buildings with photovoltaic systems. The supply of sustainable heat is no less impressive. By consolidating five existing heating plants (combination of biomass and oil heating systems) into just two locations, the new “Gewerbebau Rain” heating plant was created, which is supplemented by the existing “Chilenmatt” heating plant. This saves Unterägeri around 490,000 liters of heating oil per year. This is not only an enormous contribution to climate protection, but also a clever economic move: the CO2 savings enable additional subsidies from the canton, which in turn directly benefit the connected customers.

An architectural and technical showcase project

The new heating plant in the “Gewerbebau Rain” commercial building is not only functional, but also visually appealing. With its elegant wooden façade and stylish copper elements, it blends harmoniously into the surrounding mountains, meadows, and lake. The plant is completely embedded in the ground, providing additional commercial and residential space on the upper floor.

Inside, it features state-of-the-art technology:

• UTSR-1600 visio (2023) with retrofitted Revolution adaptive combustion control
• UTSR-1200 visio (2024) expansion thanks to sustained energy demand
• UTSR-900 visio currently in the final installation phase

This combination guarantees a reliable, flexible, and sustainable heat supply. The systems are each supplemented by a fine dust filter and a heat recovery system, which recovers up to 20% of the heat energy from the condensate.

A smart decision – retrofit with added value

Retrofitting the UTSR-1600 visio with the Revolution adaptive combustion control system paid for itself within a year.

“The retrofit was absolutely the right decision. Pollution has decreased significantly and wear on the combustion chamber components has been greatly reduced. This not only extends the service life of the system, but also significantly reduces our service and cleaning costs.”

Matthias Küng, Head of Energy, Korporation Unterägeri

Regionality as the key to sustainability

The corporation relies on closed cycles: the wood chips come from its own forest, which guarantees long-term supply security and price stability.

Even with future expansion steps – which are already being considered due to high demand for district heating – self-sufficiency remains realistic.

Partnership on equal terms

The Unterägeri Corporation has been working closely with Schmid for many years. This is a symbiosis that goes far beyond a classic customer relationship.

“The collaboration with Schmid is so well-established that you would think the service technician was one of our employees.

We can rely on each other blindly, which is priceless.”

Matthias Küng, Head of Energy, Korporation Unterägeri

The expansion of the Rain heating plant, which is being considered due to high demand, could be implemented/combined with a large heat pump from Schmid’s product range. This uses electricity from the company’s own photovoltaic system efficiently and ideally complements the biomass. Schmid can score points here as a system integrator. This is a real added value for the project partners.