Heating Controls - Commuters'' body heat to warm Swedish office block

18/01/2008

One company in Sweden is to use the body heat created by the thousands of commuters to heat up a new office, it has emerged.

If everything goes to plan, real estate company Jernhusen will redirect this energy so that it is used for some 15 per cent of the heating in its planned 4,000 sq m building, Reuters reports.

Apparently, the initiative will cost the company 200,000 Swedish crowns (around £15,000), and will be also be used to heat up water in commercial buildings.

"We had a look at it and thought 'We might actually be able to use this'," Karl Sundholm, project leader at Jernhusen, told the news agency.

"This feels good. Instead of just airing the leftover heat out we try to make use of it ... The ventilator aggregates are already there and even some of the pipes. All we need to do is complement with a few pumps and pipes."

A recent report from the European commission said that Sweden is going to be asked to get 50 per cent of its energy from non-polluting sources.