Dutch Company Siphoning Heat from Asphalt for Energy Uses
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 01. 3.08
Image courtesy of PhillipC
While most solar enthusiasts are busy focusing on building ever larger thin-film solar farms or ever more advanced concept solar cells, others have been relying on older, though no less innovative, technologies to supply households for years now. Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV, a Dutch civil engineering company, first conceived its Road Energy System 10 years ago; back then, a technology that aimed to siphon heat from roads and parking lots to heat offices and homes probably sounded a bit eccentric, if not outlandish.
Ten years on - with climate change and renewable energies featuring much in the news and in policy discussions - their once long-shot bet is looking like a shrewd one. Their thermal energy system, which collects solar energy from a 200-yard stretch of road and a parking lot, powers a 70-unit 4-story apartment complex in the small village of Avenhorn; the heat stored from 36,000 sq ft of pavement during the summer helps keep a 160,000 sq ft-industrial park warm in the winter.
Originally a system erected to reduce road maintenance costs, Ooms' technology consists of a network of flexible pipes held in place by a grid and covered over by asphalt - which helps magnify solar heat. Heated water coursing through the pipes is pumped deep underground into aquifers; it can then be retrieved, even months later, to keep the road ice-free during the winter. Alternatively, the system can pump cold water from a separate reservoir to cool homes or office buildings in the summer.
Though the water typically isn't hot enough on its own - it must first go through an electricity-powered heat pump - and the installation cost is about twice that of a conventional gas heating system, the energy required is only about half of what would otherwise be needed. That not only means lower heating bills but, perhaps more crucially, 50% less carbon emissions.
Via ::Associated Press: New Energy Uses for Asphalt (news website)
See also: ::Solar Roadways: Energy-Generating Roads Made Out of Glass and Solar Cells, ::Road Energy Systems from Scotland's Invisible Heating
This is a great idea! A secondary benefit is that it will reduce the temperature of roads, presumably, meaning less of a heat-island effect and reduced air conditioning needs.
This is what I like to read about! There is too much focus on PV (which is great tech) - but innovation such as this and other solar air heating (e.g. www.solarwall.com ) should really get more attention! Great post! Keep up the great work treehuggers!!!
Very interesting. I also like the idea of reducing the temperature of the city.
Dannah - I think you've got a very good point and I just wish US and UK people and governments were as forward thinking as the Dutch and Scandinavian countries...
As a Swedish-trained American sustainable energy engineer, I agree with weee about the leadership of Northern Europe, but I had to wonder why? I know many creative, bright, and resources Americans working on energy issues. Certainly our government doesn't support it, but what stops projects like this from being built? I'd say economics. Not only the lack of the subsidies that exist in those other countries, but even more so: the artificially cheap energy. As oil, natural gas, and electricity prices climb, creativity seems to bloom.
This is an interesting idea as seasonal storage of heat and cold obviously has enormous potential. (I just hope the narrow shady section of road in the photo is not the one used;)
In really warm climates it could also reduce damage from overheating of the road surface.
I suppose you would want to recoat the road every now and then to keep it nice and black.
I certainly have some complaints about the delays in the U.S. in formulating a realistic and effective energy policy. However, using a single small project like this in the Netherlands hardly exemplifies any significant difference. In the U.S., significant research has been done for decades in renewables and efficiency. There are tons of technology demonstrators like this all over the U.S.
Not knocking the Dutch at all, but just pointing out that criticism or praise over governments' energy policy should focus on the real policies that get implemented large scale not just giving a lot of credit for one project that then doesn't get repeated.
It's sick to think about the gross amount of asphalt and concrete that covers the united states, when you consider it's bare nature just 100 years ago. Then when you add the millions of miles of power lines and phone lines. Now with these new ideas of sustainability and pv tech, and harnessing the wind, we begin to see these huge farms of solar equipment and windmills which is almost as disturbing as the million miles of roads. I much prefer amber waves of grain to ebony waves of silicon. The idea that we could use an infrastructure that is already in place to capture energy that is already being wasted is something exciting to me. It makes the highway infrastructure more of a lifeline for America. Right now, we call it a lifeline, an artery, that carries all our goods and all our citizens, but with the new carbon concerns and all around environmental concerns, the idea of the highway being an important part of America is becoming less and less appealing. Think Urban Farming, local grown food. So, in the case that these local ideas are embraced, the roads are not a forgotten infrastructure but live on to power our towns and neighborhoods. And while we are at it, will thin film solar, why not embed solar into our roads? The highways are generally clear of tree shadows and building interruption, save car traffic....just thinking
It's sick to think about the gross amount of asphalt and concrete that covers the united states, when you consider it's bare nature just 100 years ago. Then when you add the millions of miles of power lines and phone lines. Now with these new ideas of sustainability and pv tech, and harnessing the wind, we begin to see these huge farms of solar equipment and windmills which is almost as disturbing as the million miles of roads. I much prefer amber waves of grain to ebony waves of silicon. The idea that we could use an infrastructure that is already in place to capture energy that is already being wasted is something exciting to me. It makes the highway infrastructure more of a lifeline for America. Right now, we call it a lifeline, an artery, that carries all our goods and all our citizens, but with the new carbon concerns and all around environmental concerns, the idea of the highway being an important part of America is becoming less and less appealing. Think Urban Farming, local grown food. So, in the case that these local ideas are embraced, the roads are not a forgotten infrastructure but live on to power our towns and neighborhoods. And while we are at it, will thin film solar, why not embed solar into our roads? The highways are generally clear of tree shadows and building interruption, save car traffic....just thinking
It's sick to think about the gross amount of asphalt and concrete that covers the united states, when you consider it's bare nature just 100 years ago. Then when you add the millions of miles of power lines and phone lines. Now with these new ideas of sustainability and pv tech, and harnessing the wind, we begin to see these huge farms of solar equipment and windmills which is almost as disturbing as the million miles of roads. I much prefer amber waves of grain to ebony waves of silicon. The idea that we could use an infrastructure that is already in place to capture energy that is already being wasted is something exciting to me. It makes the highway infrastructure more of a lifeline for America. Right now, we call it a lifeline, an artery, that carries all our goods and all our citizens, but with the new carbon concerns and all around environmental concerns, the idea of the highway being an important part of America is becoming less and less appealing. Think Urban Farming, local grown food. So, in the case that these local ideas are embraced, the roads are not a forgotten infrastructure but live on to power our towns and neighborhoods. And while we are at it, will thin film solar, why not embed solar into our roads? The highways are generally clear of tree shadows and building interruption, save car traffic....just thinking