Finnish heat pump expert­ise appraised as the best in Europe

Energy tech­no­logy company Oilon and energy company Helen have won the pres­ti­gi­ous The Heat Pump Award in the Decar­Build­ing series with their mutu­ally developed heat pump solu­tion. The com­pet­i­tion, arranged by the European Heat Pump Asso­ci­ation EHPA since 2011, rewards most innov­at­ive and energy-​efficient heat pump pro­jects on the con­tin­ent.

In the winning project, a new kind of heat pump solu­tion was built into an apart­ment block in Pasila, Hel­sinki. The heat pump provides both heating and cooling for the prop­erty. Heat sources include the prop­erty’s waste water, an array of bore­holes as well as the refri­ger­a­tion appli­ances and space cooling systems used in the build­ing’s own grocery store. Addi­tion­ally, if the amount of energy gen­er­ated exceeds the con­sump­tion in the build­ing, the surplus heat will be trans­ferred to Helen for use in dis­trict heating.

“Not a single joule of energy is wasted here”, says Oilon Chief Busi­ness Officer Martti Kukkola.

Two-way energy pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion becom­ing more common is part of a trend renew­ing the heating and cooling of build­ings in a more envir­on­ment­ally friendly way.

“Recyc­ling is always sens­ible, but invest­ing in tech­no­lo­gies improv­ing energy effi­ciency and the util­isa­tion of waste heat is more import­ant now than ever”, says Senior Vice Pres­id­ent Sari Man­nonen of Helen’s Solu­tions and Port­fo­lio Depart­ment.

Heat pumps have a large role to play here.

“Many dif­fer­ent means are needed on the road to carbon neut­ral­ity and energy inde­pend­ence, among which power­ful heat pumps are some of the best”, says Kukkola.

An intel­li­gently react­ing Oilon Chill­Heat pump is the beating heart of the award-​winning Pos­tipuisto housing dis­trict cir­cu­lar economy hybrid solu­tion as well, which is able to operate in dif­fer­ent part load and tem­per­at­ure ranges.

“The most innov­at­ive aspect is that various heat sources can be util­ised at dif­fer­ent times of the year together at an optimal and carbon-​neutral way”, Kukkola explains.

Accord­ing to Sari Man­nonen, the housing dis­trict planned for the Hel­sinki Pos­tipuisto area set a new stand­ard for the energy effi­ciency of new con­struc­tion pro­jects. Helen and Oilon took up the chal­lenge together, as they have done pion­eer­ing work in the recov­ery of waste heat for over ten years now. Waste heat has been reclaimed for example at the world’s largest heat pump facil­ity Katri Vala and at several com­mer­cial sites and real estate loc­a­tions. The award-​winning project however took the util­isa­tion rate to another level.

“This recog­ni­tion is yet another indic­a­tion of how part­ner­ships between indus­trial product devel­op­ment efforts and com­pan­ies ser­vi­cing various cus­tomer seg­ments create novel innov­a­tions and tech­no­lo­gies that will help us achieve energy inde­pend­ence”, Man­nonen rejoices.