Commuters' body heat to warm office

[bjoque]

Commuters' body heat to warm office

Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:05am EST

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish state-owned firm has found a cheap, eco-friendly source of energy to warm one of its offices: body heat from a quarter million commuters steaming through Stockholm's central train station.

Body heat already warms the station itself but the surplus, currently let out in thin air, will be redirected to provide as much as 15 percent of the heating in a planned 4,000 square meter office building, real estate firm Jernhusen said.

"We had a look at it and thought 'We might actually be able to use this'," said Karl Sundholm, project leader at Jernhusen, which also owns the station. "This feels good. Instead of just airing the leftover heat out we try to make use of it."

Jernhusen markets the building as "environment smart" and aims for its energy consumption to be half of what a corresponding building usually is.

The bodily warmth from the central station will be redirected to heat up water. The investment will be around 200,000 Swedish crowns ($31,200), Sundholm said.

"The ventilator aggregates are already there, and even some of the pipes. All we need to do is complement with a few pumps and pipes."

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom)

[Lecom]

Much respect to clever planners.

[Goody]

sounds cool, but I cant help but think of BO.

[Boris2k7]

Here a link to Jernhusen's website

Can anyone decode Swedish?

And the press release from their site (thankfully in English):




2008-01-21
Body heat to warm up environmentally friendly building

Kungsbrohuset, a new environmentally friendly building to be built by Jernhusen in the new district of Västra City (West City) in Stockholm, will be heated partly using body heat. The idea is to use the heat generated by the 250,000 people who pass through the nearby Central Station every day. The project has already garnered international attention, before construction has even begun.

Using standard heat exchangers in the ventilation system, the excess heat generated by visitors to Stockholm Central Station can be converted to hot water and pumped to the nearby office block in order to be converted to basic heating in the offices. The precise effectiveness of this process is not yet known, but it is hoped that this source will meet 5-15% of the building’s heating requirements.

Environmentally innovative Kungsbrohuset has reached the attention of the BBC, Le Monde and media in countries including Germany, Canada, China, Poland, Russia, USA and Turkey.

“We are delighted that we have already attracted international attention to our environmental initiative, as it is our ambition for Kungsbrohuset to be a role model on the modern property market,” says Per Berggren, CEO of Jernhusen. “We hope Kungsbrohuset will attract tenants who are keen to work with us to achieve sustainable energy use and maintain an exceptional level of environmental consideration, and who value a central location with the whole world within reach. The location may be the best in Sweden from a transport point of view.”

Making use of excess heat from the surrounding buildings is just one of several elements in the creation of this environmentally innovative building. Energy consumption and alternative energy sources are also being investigated. The goal is for Kungsbrohuset to have just half the energy consumption of equivalent buildings. The building will be environmentally certified according to three different systems: Green Building; the P mark; and a new Swedish system being developed by the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, the Royal Institute of Technology and the Swedish Energy Agency. Kungsbrohuset, expected to be finished by 2010, will provide almost 40,000 m2 for offices, hotels, restaurants and shops.

The environmental aspect of the development of the property began on 7 December last year, when the demolition of the old building started. Any material that could be recycled was put to good use, for example the windows, which went to a construction project in Estonia, and the office furniture, which was donated to Doctors Without Borders.

About Västra City
Kungsbrohuset is in situated in Västra City (West City), an area that lines the railway tracks from Riddarfjärden Bay towards Barnhusbron Bridge. In 10-15 years’ time, Stockholm is expected to have grown so much that this area will be part of the very centre of the city. A lot is already happening in the area, with several major new construction projects underway and older buildings being demolished. Future projects for Jernusen include the renovation of Stockholm Central Station and, from a longer-term perspective, building over the railway tracks in front of the Swedish World Trade Center. For Jernhusen, the construction of Kungsbrohuset is the next step in the development of Västra City. The first step in this process was the reconstruction of neighbouring building Klarabergshuset.

Read more at www.jernhusen/kungsbrohuset and www.kungsbrohuset.se.

See Reuters web-TV

For more information contact:
Per Berggren, CEO: +46 (0) 8-410 626 01
Karl Sundholm, Projectleader: +46 (0) 8-410 032 76

[Swede]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

Here a link to Jernhusen's website
Can anyone decode Swedish?

Come on, it's a Germanic language with pretty similar grammar... not really that big diff. There really isn't much more to say about the building other than that the fugly 50s there right now is already being torn down and that there's a fair amount of redevolpment/densification going on in "Västra City" (which means Western Downtown, not Western City. sucky translators), with even more sketched in for the (longterm) future.

Old building:

photo by SSC's khaan
More pics of activity in the area: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpo...postcount=1555

[staff]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

Here a link to Jernhusen's website

Can anyone decode Swedish?

Sure, just tell me what to translate. Although, I think most of the info you'll need is in that press release?

[Boris2k7]

Heh, it was just a general comment... can't read Swedish... >.O

But yes, most of the information I need was in that press release... which is, rather amusingly, the only thing in English on the front page. I guess it was big enough internationally to justify the translation.

© Swede: Thanks for the link BTW, Stockholm an co. have some neat projects going on.

[FREKI]

I love the new building design - but the body heat thing is overdoing it.. ( and imo crazy even if it do work and saves money ).. aall thins enviromentalism can be too much - and this is imo one of those cases

[Boris2k7]

Originally Posted by FREKI

I love the new building design - but the body heat thing is overdoing it.. ( and imo crazy even if it do work and saves money ).. aall thins enviromentalism can be too much - and this is imo one of those cases

How so? If it works, why not? There are many things that could be considered "too much," so why pick on environmentalism?

[FREKI]

^If Sweden is anything like Denmark ( and it is ) the running costs will be way higher than estimated and so will the reasearch - all in all a high priced solution instead of just joining the central heating system I'm more then sure is plenty full in Stockholm..

As a way of getting attention it's cute - but there's a lot factors such as varying temps from varying number of commuters, and if it at max only covers 15% they might as well just use the exess heating from the buildings server park - chances are it will put out way more heat and money could be saved on driving the heat away instead of cooling it...

[Swede]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

© Swede: Thanks for the link BTW, Stockholm an co. have some neat projects going on.

A few. But not enough! and too low and too suburban and too similar in loks/style.
The whole Stockholm thread on SSC, all 1600+ posts

[orulz]

I was in Stockholm back in June 2006, and although it was certainly warm enough then to need no heating, Central Station was definitely very hot. Particularly where you come in off of the viaduct onto the 2nd level of the station. I never would have guessed that it was due to body heat, though; I would have thought it was the sun heating it like a greenhouse, or else the heat from trains, or something. Regardless.

I also thought it would be cool if something were built on top of the tracks across the viaduct from central station. A lot of the tracks are already covered with buildings, why not cover the rest?

[Swede]

Weeeeelll... traditionally cooling buildings has not been a problem for more than maybe a week a year whereas heating is for like 10 months of the year, so heating is where our infrastructure is at (basically all of Stockholm has district heating). So the heat you felt indoors in summer is from the sun and hot weather (up here anything over 20 is warm, over 25 is hot).

There are long-term plans for buildings over those tracks. but we'll see how that pans out, the nimbys have been extremely strong in Stockholm for the last 40-50 years. But now that us yimbys are getting organised...