Body heat generated by the 250,000 passengers who travel through Stockholm’s central railway station each day will provide up to one-fifth of the heat needed in a neighbouring 13-storey office building – the first time such excess heat will be transferred from one building to another. Standard heat exchangers in the station’s ventilation system can convert the excess heat to hot water which will be pumped to the nearby office block and converted to basic heating in the offices. It is hoped that this will meet 5-15% of the building’s heating requirements.

This innovative approach for Kungsbrohuset, which will be built by Jernhusen AB in a district of Stockholm that will be in the city's centre within 10-15 years, attracted worldwide media attention before construction had even begun. "It's based on old technology," says Jernhusen's managing director, Per Berggren, who wants Kungsbrohuset to be a role model on the modern property market. "It's more like thinking out of the box, being environmentally smart and using the heat from the station to produce and transport heat to a new building."

Architects and engineers designing the new office block set a goal of reducing its energy consumption to half the level of a similar building. “Everybody was on board, trying to make the building as environmentally friendly as possible,” says project manager Karl Sundholm. "We were sitting and discussing how we could achieve that, and the idea just came up. We’ve already been approached by a number of other companies interested in applying the same concept to other projects."

When demolition of the old building on the site began on Dec. 7, 2007, any material that could be recycled was put to good use: the windows went to a construction project in Estonia, and the office furniture was donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Jerhusen AB owns, manages and develops a portfolio of stations and workshop properties adjoining the Swedish rail network in Sweden. Established in 2001, the state-owned company acts as station manager for train and bus traffic operators at some 140 locations in Sweden; manages tenancies at railway properties; optimizes the value of property and land no longer needed for railway use; and draws up development plans for stations in major towns and cities.  Kungsbrohuset, expected to be finished by 2010, will include offices, hotels, restaurants and shops in the district of Västra City (West City), where several major new construction projects are already underway. For Jernhusen, Kungsbrohuset is the next step in developing Västra City, following reconstruction of neighbouring building Klarabergshuset; future projects will include renovating Stockholm Central Station and building over the railway tracks in front of the Swedish World Trade Center.

This story was compiled from a media release entitled Body heat to warm up environmentally-friendly building, 21 Jan. 2008, and a BBC News story dated 7 Feb. 2008 entitled Office block warmed by body heat.

 

 

 


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