BMW's Regensburg plant pilots thermal oil system

As part of its efforts to decarbonise vehicle production, a recently concluded pilot project at BMW's Plant Regensburg demonstrates that by using thermal oil as a heat transfer medium, this enables heat generation to be decoupled from the rest of the system's components, thus allowing the energy supply to the coating lines to be adapted flexibly at any time.

This means paint shops can already be set up to run on renewable energy, even if gas-free heating is not yet an option. The power grid is not currently equipped at all locations to handle the high energy demands of a fully electrified paint shop, largely due to its extremely energy-intensive drying processes. A thermal oil-based system can also be operated with gas as an interim solution.

The switch to thermal oil heating, combined with the system's improved energy efficiency, is expected to greatly reduce the carbon footprint of BMW Group Plant Regensburg's paint shop, and is in line with the brand's efforts to decarbonise vehicle production.