Can you take surplus heat out of a supermarket’s cooling counters and use it to secure comfortable temperatures in neighboring houses during winter? You bet. It’s already happening in a supermarket in Hoeruphav, Denmark.
Try holding your hand to the back of your kitchen fridge for a second or two. It’s warm. That’s because a fridge produces surplus heat as it’s cooling your food. So just think of all the heat generated from the big refrigeration counters in your local supermarket. Odds are that it goes to waste. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
A solution from Danfoss in the grocery store SuperBrugsen in Hoeruphav, near Soenderborg, Denmark, recycles the heat generated by the refrigeration and freezer counters. The solution produces more heat than the store needs for hot tap water, and more than it needs to ensure a comfortable temperature for its customers. So SuperBrugsen sends the surplus heat to the local district energy plant. And the heat that the plant gets from the store is enough to warm up 16 single-family houses in the local community. Danfoss, SuperBrugsen and Soenderborg District Heating jointly came up with the solution. Cooling, heating, and drives solutions from Danfoss make the system work. The supermarket was connected to the district-heating network in February 2015.
Read more in Danfoss Annual Magazine 2016
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