Heat Recovery from Exhaust Air at the Central Hospital

By project CLEAN

Published on 04 January 2019

Finland

Pohjois- ja Itä-Suomi

About this good practice

Hospitals need cooling and typically excess heat is removed outside without utilization. Heat from the North Karelian central hospital has been recovered and returned to district heating network since 2016.
Energy company Fortum has created an open district heating system and this case is the first one in Joensuu area.
Open district heating makes district heating system even more effective, but it also creates possibilities to increase energy efficiency in buildings.

Resources needed

Heating pumps to ensure that air is suitable for the district heating system.
Costs of the investment: 1,5 M€ (estimate).

Evidence of success

The hospital has gained small income from the district heat operator and this income is expected to raise when system is optimized based on the experiences from the first years.
The hospital can also utilize the heat to own use - for example heating the water.

Potential for learning or transfer

In general hospital areas are major public energy consumers and usually buildings are partially older ones. There are lot of possibilities to achieve savings both with energy efficiency and economically. There are also requirements (and legislation) for the temperature (customers, staff, medicine, machinery, it-gadgets) and this is why there is a constant need for air-conditioning and cooling in premises. If exhaust air could be used either in closed energy circulation or other ways, there would be more possibilities to allocate limited resources in better way.