Tag: Heizen

Birstal heating network installs wood-fired boiler

The sustainable Birstal heating network has taken another step forward with the installation of the first wood-fired boilers. According to a press release, the project initiated by Primeo Energie from Münchenstein and uptownBasel has expanded the heating system on the uptownBasel site with the installation of the boilers. A heat pump is to be installed at a later stage. The wood-fired boilers are two biomass boilers with outputs of 8 and 11 megawatts. According to the press release, modern filter systems and technologies should lead to the lowest possible exhaust gas values. At a later date, the heating centre is expected to deliver an output of 40 megawatts, making it the largest plant operated by Primeo Energie in Switzerland.

The Birstal heating network consists of 25 heating plants and networks in Reinach, Arlesheim and Münchenstein. It is increasingly being converted to renewable energies. Part of the energy source will be waste heat from the uptownBasel area in Arlesheim, while biomass and wood from regional cultivation will also be burnt in cold seasons or during peak loads.

With the new energy centre and the Birstal heating network, Primeo Energie aims to make a contribution to the energy transition and to a sustainable heating and cooling supply in the region, the press release explains further.

December 2023
Heating control from Yuon Control saves 20 percent energy

The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts has proven that the Yuon ONE heating control system from the start-up Yuon Control from Oberburg reduces the consumption of heating energy by an average of 20 per cent. Yuon Control and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts are working on a project to lay the foundations for efficient and intelligent control for heating systems, according to a media release. It is being funded by the Innosuisse Innovation Promotion Agency.

Yuon Control AG says it has developed Yuon ONE, a predictive, self-learning heating control system that helps to heat more intelligently and save costs. It is thus also able to optimise the utilisation in district heating networks.

The Assessment research group, led by Professor Dr Philipp Schütz at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts’ Competence Centre for Thermal Energy Storage, tested this in seven buildings in the Bern and Lucerne regions, ranging from only moderately insulated houses from the 1970s to modern Minergie houses. The heating was regulated alternately for a fortnight with the Yuon control device and with a traditional control device without optimisation. The test persons turned off the heating via the Yuon app during absences. This increased the savings to as much as 23 per cent, they say. At the same time, a reduction in CO2 emissions was observed in all building types.

According to the study, Yuon ONE is suitable for new and old buildings, regardless of the type of heating and the age of the building. Machine learning-based software takes into account the respective building characteristics such as thermal capacity, passive solar yields and tightness. “The innovation is that the system automatically learns the behaviour of the building, its thermal properties,” Dr Sebastian Hersberger, co-CEO of Yuon, is quoted as saying. In addition, the system incorporates the weather forecast from MeteoSwiss.

September 2023
Bern has the most climate-friendly building stock

Navitas Consilium has developed an interactive tool to show the share of renewable or imported energy in the building stocks of each municipality in Switzerland, the Martigny-based energy and climate consultancy informs in a press release . The amount of greenhouse gases generated by the building stocks can also be called up using the tool. With its development, Navitas Consilium wants to help determine the need for decarbonization of building stocks for the implementation of the Swiss climate strategy.

An interactive map can be used to show that the most densely populated areas of the country use a low proportion of renewable energy compared to rural areas. With a share of 28 percent, Lausanne is still the best of the ten major cities. For Switzerland as a whole, the values vary between 2 and 84 percent.

At almost 40 percent, heating and hot water in buildings account for a very high proportion of total energy consumption. For the implementation of the climate strategy, Navitas Consilium therefore considers a reduction in energy consumption in combination with the use of low-emission renewable energies to be essential.

The city of Bern is currently one step ahead when it comes to the climate-friendliness of its building stock. With 23 kilograms of CO2 equivalents per square meter per year, Bern has the lowest emissions of the ten largest cities in Switzerland. Zurich and Basel follow, each with 24 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per square meter. In general, cities with less than 10 percent energy from renewable sources have comparatively high emissions of greenhouse gases.

September 2022
Heating advice from EnergieSchweiz is now free of charge

The impulse advice on renewable heating has been free of charge for owners of residential properties since April 1, 2022, according to a press release . With this SwissEnergy program, the federal government is promoting the switch to a renewable heat generation system.

The approximately one and a half hour on-site consultation can be used for any residential property whose heating system is more than ten years old and is used as the main heating system for room heating. The building category and the energy source of the old heat generator are irrelevant.

Interested parties can use the postcode search to get a list of approved impulse counselors in their area and make an appointment. There are only two categories: a single-family house or a multi-family house with up to six residential units, as well as a multi-family house with more than six residential units or condominiums.

April 2022
NEST data center helps with heating

The ECO-Qube project examines how the electrical and thermal worlds can be brought together with IT infrastructure. For this purpose, the waste heat potential of micro data centers for building heating is to be examined. The field tests are taking place in the newly installed data center in Empa ‘s NEST research building and at two other locations in Turkey and the Netherlands.

ECO-Qube is designed for three years. After that, the team wants to provide guidelines for planners and operators of buildings. The project is supported by the EU funding program Horizon 2020. It brings together research and industry partners from Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. “Our goal is to reduce both the energy requirements and the CO2 emissions of small data centers by a fifth,” says Çağatay Yılmaz, Innovation Manager at the Turkish IT solution provider Lande and project manager of ECO-Qube, in an Empa press release quoted.

With the help of big data structures and artificial intelligence, sensor data from the individual IT components is accumulated and combined with air flow simulations for precise cooling. At the same time, the computing loads would be distributed in such a way that the systems work as energy-efficiently as possible.

The three data centers will also be integrated into the energy systems of the surrounding districts. If possible, they should be powered by renewable energy. “It is interesting for us to consider the micro data center not just as an electrical consumer, but as a dynamic component in the overall system,” explains Philipp Heer, head of the Energy Hub energy research platform at Empa.

March 2022
Homeowners are ready to switch to renewable heating

The focus of the eleventh customer barometer renewable energies presented by Raiffeisen Switzerland is on the deployment and use of heating technologies, solar systems and electromobility. According to a media release , the survey by Raiffeisen, the University of St.Gallen and EnergieSchweiz showed that half of the homeowners surveyed are generally willing to replace their oil or gas heating with a more environmentally friendly technology.

A quarter of those surveyed have not yet thought about a replacement, according to the media release. 30 percent of those surveyed already use climate-friendly heating technologies such as heat pumps, solar thermal energy and district heating. But 28 percent still heat with oil. Around a fifth of these have already opted for a climate-friendly replacement in the next few years.

According to the Raiffeisen report, photovoltaic systems (PVA) are currently growing exponentially. 22 percent of the homeowners surveyed already have a system for generating solar power. 30 percent could imagine a purchase in the near future. This year’s study also looked at battery storage for photovoltaic systems. The main arguments for this are given as a 26 percent increase in revenue from electricity production, 23 percent a reduction in CO2 emissions and a reduction in electricity costs (22 percent).

According to the announcement, Raiffeisen relies on a holistic advisory process to increase the modernization rate. “We are convinced that long-term planning and financial preparation of the investment in the property are decisive success factors in order to carry out the optimal modernization measures at the right time,” Roland Altwegg, Head of New Business Models & Ecosystems at Raiffeisen Switzerland, is quoted as saying. And: “What is often forgotten: Environmentally friendly technologies also increase the value of a property.”

November 2021
Health center uses ecological heating center

The health center Dielsdorf relies on a sustainable heating technology solution. For this purpose, the Liechtenstein company Hoval has installed a heating center the size of a small single-family house on the roof of the facility , according to a press release . A solar system extends over the rest of the roof area.

“The large area offered itself for the use of solar energy. The entire system was lifted onto the roof using a crane, ”explains Edgar Stutz, Head of Technical Service at the Dielsdorf Health Center, in the press release. According to Heinz Hitz, technical sales consultant at Hoval, only around 30 systems of this size are put into operation in Switzerland each year.

The heart of the energy supply is a gas condensing boiler and the solar panels. There are two energy stores in the basement. When both storage tanks have reached the required temperature, the excess energy from the solar system is automatically transferred to an old part of the building. The system is supplemented by an oil condensing boiler, which is only used in the event of a fault.

Compared to conventional heating systems, the health center can save 120,000 kilowatt hours of energy with the new system, says Björn Zittra, Head of Sales Support at Hoval. “That corresponds to around 12,000 cubic meters of natural gas – or around 29 tons of CO2 per year,” he explains.

August 2021
New energy solutions at the start

The use of fossil fuels still dominates, especially in the area of heating living space. Thanks to innovative technologies, new climate-friendly alternatives are emerging here – for example, heating with sea thermal systems or the use of waste heat from computers. Both approaches use existing heat sources to heat buildings.
Lake thermal energy is one of the youngest forms of energy generation and makes use of the lakes as huge heat stores. In summer, the lakes absorb the sun's warmth and give it off slowly. Even when it is below zero, the lake water retains a certain temperature in the depths – ideal for extracting heat from the water in the lower layers and using it as a natural source of heat. The water is then returned to the lake in a cooler condition. This is harmless to the ecosystem and to a certain extent even counteracts climatic warming. With this technology, the largest lake thermal project in Switzerland is successfully launched in Lucerne.
The Paris startup “Qarnot” takes a different approach and relies on the waste heat from computers. Instead of laboriously cooling computers in large server rooms, they are built into radiators. In this way, data flows in the radiators instead of water. The decentralized computing power is sold to large companies, the digital radiators themselves to private households. After the initial investment, they no longer have any heating costs. The more heat is desired, the more data power is generated. The data is encrypted and is not saved, so it is not possible to trace which data is flowing. The same thing works with hot water boilers – an entire residential complex in Bordeaux has already been equipped with this technology. Due to the increasing amounts of data around the world, the future potential seems enormous.
Read more about intelligent solutions here:
https://proptechmarket.net/loesungen

April 2021
Energie Zukunft Schweiz launches climate bonus for wood heating

Energie Zukunft Schweiz and Holzfeuerungen Schweiz ( SFIH ) are promoting wood heating systems with a new climate bonus. This is intended to reward those who replace the fossil fuels oil or gas with local wood. Because, according to a press release , previous funding programs are aimed primarily at small residential buildings and not at industrial and commercial buildings, this premium is aimed at medium-sized and large heating systems.

“Thanks to the generous climate bonus from the funding program and the simple handling of Energy Future Switzerland, this gap has now been closed. And that is the same for the whole of Switzerland, ”says the announcement. This would mean that medium-sized and large wood heating systems would be “not only the most climate-friendly, but also the most economical variant”. Heating with wood protects the climate, promotes local added value and contributes to a healthy forest. This program is regulated by the Federal Office for the Environment ( FOEN ).

The subsidy amounts to 18 cents per kilowatt hour or 1.80 francs per liter of oil or cubic meter of natural gas saved. Energie Zukunft Schweiz calculates that “with correctly dimensioned heating” this corresponds to 360 francs per kilowatt of power. For example, for a block of flats with ten apartments, the investment costs could be reduced by 70 percent. According to Energie Zukunft Schweiz, the savings for large heating systems with an output of more than 200 kilowatts, for example for community buildings, industrial companies and large office buildings, are particularly interesting.

August 2020