Jernhuset, a property-administration company in Stockholm, Sweden, plans to use body heat from hundreds of thousands of people who pass through the Central Station each day–to heat an office building.
According to Karl Sundholm, representative of Jernhuset, “All people produce heat, and that heat is in fact fairly difficult to get rid of. Instead of opening windows and letting all that heat go to waste we want to harness it through the ventilation system.”
A similar system is used during the winter months at Minnesota’s Mall of America, which uses a combination of the skylights, light bulbs, and body heat to warm America’s largest mall. So, the technology is fairly old, but in Sweden, it will be used in a different way through the use of pipes, water, and pumps.
The new office building will hold a small hotel and a few shops, and is expected to be completed by 2010. Sundholm expects the new system will bring down heating costs by 20%. What’s the cost of this idea? 200,000 kronos ($31,200 US)
“For a large building expected to cost several hundred million kronor to build, that’s not that much,” he said.
