Result description
The GrowSmarter partner Stockholms Exergi has developed a technology that recovers surplus heat and integrate it into existing district heating (DH) networks to meet local heating demands by citizens in an urban environment. An innovative business model has been developed for a yet unexplored potential, where installation of plug and play heat pumps at the waste heat producer facilities the ability to recover the energy into the DH network.
Waste heat is abundant in cities but rarely used. Data centres and shopping malls with many freezers and coolers generate lots of excess heat which is often costly to get rid of. The technical innovation used is a heat pump model that can produce hot water at a temperature of 85°C instead of around 68ºC.
The potential for heat recovery in Stockholm alone is estimated at 1 TWh annually, and the district heating utility Stockholm Exergi has developed this innovative approach called Open District Heating (OpenDH). Within GrowSmarter, the utility company Stockholm Exergi has delivered two heat recovering projects: one local supermarket and a data centre in the city. The heat recovered in those two projects is then injected into the existing DH network of the area.
The implementation at the data centre proved very successful both for Stockholm Exergi and the data centre owner Glesys. The heat reuse of the data center chosen for the GrowSmarter project is expected to increase gradually to a level of approximately 1MW heat, a heat recovery that is sufficient to heat more than 1,000 apartments while reducing annual CO2 emissions in Stockholm.
Upscaling & replication potential
This measure is applicable to any city where there is a heating system nearby into which the waste heat can be fed, and a System Operator willing to allow, and pay for, third-party feed-in into the network.
Addressing target audiences and expressing needs
- To raise awareness and possibly influence policy
- Expanding to more markets /finding new customers
- Public or private funding institutions
- EU and Member State Policy-makers
- Other Actors who can help us fulfil our market potential
- Private Investors
R&D, Technology and Innovation aspects
Result submitted to Horizon Results Platform by STOCKHOLMS STAD
