Science City: Storing summer heat for the winter

Hönggerberg Campus

A potentially groundbreaking project is being implemented in Switzerland at the Honggerberg Campus at Science City.

The new energy plan sees waste heat from buildings stored in the earth through 800 ground probes during the summer and then reused for heating in the winter months. With the heat being reused in a ‘refined' form, the manufacturers believe the concept has the potential for revolutionising how buildings are heated in Switzerland.

Construction has already begun on the Science City Campus with the storage fields being built not just below the ground but above. This is so heat from appliances, computer servers and even people can be stored for later in the year, rather than being pumped out and wasting perfectly good heat.

The two heat storage fields are made up of about 800 pipes that stretch 200 meters each. The pipes are to be laid five meters deep in the ground beneath buildings and alongside structures. The system of tubes will act as a heat storage unit, and will be connected to the building's supply network.

The plan is for 800 of these pipes to be located underneath and alongside the Science City buildings by 2020, which, together with other structural measures, will enable energy to be managed on the campus with almost no CO2 emissions, as stipulated by the ETH Zurich Energy Concept.

Anergy

This low-grade energy, also known as anergy, plan was devised by the campus' then Vice-President for Planning and Logistics, Gerhard Schmitt. His idea for heat to be stored in the ground via a large ground storage system, and subsequently reused and distributed by fans would remove the need for fans and coolers, cutting down on carbon emissions.

A circulating water system would also make sure that the heat is kept at between 8 and 18°C. Then in winter, the heat is pumped up again through the same circulation system and used to heat the building. Since the temperature range of 8 to 18°C would be insufficient for this, the heat is ‘upgraded' to 30 to 35°C using several electrically-driven heat pumps.

The system is decentralised: each building is equipped with a computer that controls precisely how much heat is needed to heat it.

It is an innovative plan and if it succeeds could potentially be used in campuses all over the continent.

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