The hotel has been fitted with solar panels on the facade, a groundwater-based heating and cooling system and a 10,000 litre tank to collect food scraps for biogas conversion, making it one of the greenest hotels in the world.
The hotel’s new solar array consists of 2,500 custom-made solar modules in 38 different designs. The array covers a total area of 1,700 square metres and will generate around 170,000 kWh per year representing approximately 10 percent of the building’s annual energy consumption. The remainder will be supplied by wind turbines from DONG Energy.
Beneath the hotel, Denmark’s first groundwater-based heating and cooling system has been installed, saving up to 90 percent of the building’s heating and air conditioning consumption. The installation required drilling to a depth of 110 metres at two locations nearby. In the summer, cool water from the ground, at 9˚C, will be pumped via a series of wells to the hotel cellars where it will be sent through a heat exchanger and back down to a heat reservoir where the heat will be accumulated and stored until is needed during the winter. The cooled water from the heat exchanger will be circulated in the building to cool rooms to the desired temperature without the need for any active refrigeration.
During the winter, the water from the reservoir will be pumped back through the heat exchanger and down to the wells to be sent through two heat pumps which will raise the temperature to 55˚C. This will be used to heat hotel rooms and offices.
Food waste will be ground and vacuum-extracted into a 10,000 litre tank located in the basement. When the tank is full it will be emptied and the food waste transported to a biogas plant to be converted into biogas with remaining waste used as agricultural fertiliser.
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