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Heat pumps helping Swedish municipality to become 100% sustainable

Posted on 2nd Mar 2011 @ 10:58 PM

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vamhus-school1.jpgThey are working hard in Mora to become Sweden’s first municipality with 100% renewable energy. And by replacing old oil burners with Danfoss heat pumps run by wind power-generated electricity in some of the municipality’s buildings, things are going in the right direction. Thanks to the heat pumps, more than 50% is being shaved off the energy bills and the CO2, lead and arsenic emissions are being reduced.

The oil burner at Våmhus School in Mora, Sweden, has been pensioned off. The municipality has, instead, installed large heat pumps which supply energy from an underground pipe system beneath the local football field. The school has invested around 148,000 Euros in this equipment, replacing the old system, which had an annual oil consumption of 40 m3. However, that money will be paid back quickly. 

“We had oil costs of around 57,000 Euros every year, but now that we have switched to ground heat, we expect the annual power costs to be between 17,100 and 22,800 Euros, meaning that the savings amount to more than 50 percent,” says Mats Jansson, construction engineer at Mora Municipality. 

High-quality heat pumps 
Våmhus School is not the only public building in Mora Municipality to replace the energy-consuming oil burners with the cheaper and more environmentally-friendly heat pumps. Three other public plants have also had heat pumps installed, all of which run on wind power-generated electricity. 

It has cost approximately 570,600 Euros to replace the oil burners with heat pumps but, according to Mats Jansson, this investment will be repaid within a period of six years. From that time onwards the municipality can enjoy major electricity savings, which the citizens will benefit from. 

“Heat pumps were the best solution for us, but we would actually increase our power consumption by switching from oil to heat pumps,” says Mats Jansson. “This conflicted with our environmental plan, but by running the pumps using electricity from wind power, we found the best possible answer. We did not choose the Danfoss pumps because of the price, but because they were technically strong and, according to our surveys, have the best quality.” 

Less lead, arsenic and CO2 
In addition to the saved money, the people of Mora Municipality can also look forward to reduced pollution. The old oil burners consumed almost 100m3 of oil every year, and that resulted in 270 tons of CO2 emissions, but with the new heat pumps that is all history. Furthermore, Mora’s population will not be exposed to the lead and arsenic that was discharged from the oil burners. 

The electricity generated by the wind turbines, which the heat pumps run on, comes from the neighboring municipality of Rättvik. 

Danfoss has also developed a new solution, in partnership with Telge Energi, that makes it possible for private customers to run their heat pumps using energy from wind turbines.