Keeping Vienna's residents and businesses warm is the mission of Fernwärme Wien, one of Europe's 
largest district heating networks. Located in the heart of Vienna is their Spittelau Thermal Waste 
Treatment Plant.  Its striking appearance, which is itself a work of art, is extraordinary for a utility.  
But its distinction far exceeds its beauty.  

The Spittelau facility attracts world attention and recognition by efficiently converting essentially all 
of Vienna's household and commercial waste into clean, environmentally safe heating energy for the 
city.  Advanced technology is at work, as state-of-the-art equipment processes more than twelve 
hundred tons of waste every day.

Using the most modern emissions-purification technology, Fernwärme Wien is able to far exceed 
Europe's stringent environmental laws, while also delivering a dependable supply of heat at the lowest 
possible costs to its customers.

"Turning waste into heat energy, while emitting no pollutants, requires a very complex series of 
processes.  We rely on HP and in particular, OpenVMS to keep our systems stable.  OpenVMS is an 
easy to monitor operating system with a high level of security —precisely what Fernwärme Wien 
requires."  --Mr. Gruber

Monitoring and controlling facility processes is a complex, round-the-clock operation, tracking more 
than nine thousand discrete activities per second.   Fernwärme Wien utilizes a plant-wide control 
system developed by HP partner, ABB, a leader in power and automation technology.  The control 
system collects and archives operational data, while continuously displaying real-time information 
from not only the Spittelau facility, but also from Fernwärme Wien's other ten energy plants located 
throughout Vienna.

"We have an excellent relationship with HP and ABB.  We depend on them to help us solve our IT 
challenges.  They provide Fernwärme Wien an ideal solution to ensure 24x7 operations.  A failure of 
our computer system would negatively affect the entire controlling of the entire district-heating 
network.  The high availability we get from OpenVMS is critical to our success and it is an ideal basis 
for implementing a fail-safe system."  --Mr. Gruber

The Fernwärme Wien heating network has been growing in size and complexity over the last two 
decades.  Currently engaged in a six-year project to continue to keep its plants and distribution system 
modern, Fernwärme Wien relies on HP to help it flexibly adapt to evolving business requiements.

"The stability of OpenVMS is an important pre-requisite to provide Vienna with heat – day-in and 
day out.  In fact, we have never experienced any unscheduled downtime with OpenVMS and we are 
very confident in HP's ability to meet our future computing demands."   --Mr. Gruber

Fernwärme Wien's efficient operations save Vienna from having to burn three hundred thousand tons 
of fuel oil each year, which of course significantly reduces pollution.  Fernwärme Wien demonstrates 
how to use alternative energy sources for safe, dependable and economical heating, and with support 
from HP, leads the world to a cleaner and healthier future.