A promising case for the preservation of historic buildings, without the expense of the environment.
Smeden 5 is a combined office and 35-apartment residential building located at Tulegatan 12 in Stockholm, Sweden. The building, owned by Carl-Henrik Permert, was built in 1924.
Permert sought after a cost-effective alternative energy solution for his tenants with the goal of incorporating a solution that could efficiently supply both heating and comfort cooling while avoiding reliance on costly district heating.
The result was a geothermal-based integrated energy system from Energy Machines, installed in 2019.
To access and store geothermal energy, 16 boreholes with a depth of 250m were drilled beneath the building’s basement floor. The drilling was carried out by LKAB Wassara, who specializes in floor drillings within densely populated urban areas.
Heat and cold are stored seasonally in the boreholes. The stored heat and cold are extracted throughout the year as needed via Energy Machines’ EM1 combined heat-pump-and-chiller.
With EM1, the need for additional investment, operational, and maintenance costs for a standalone chiller (i.e. the alternative cooling solution) is eliminated. Instead, only the maintenance cost for a heat pump is necessary to cover the needs all heating and cooling functionalities for the building.
Since the implementation of Energy Machines’ geothermal solution, the century-old building now boasts an energy class rating of “B” and exceeds the current legal energy requirements for brand new builds. This marks an impressive achievement for a building lacking in modern insulation (brick walls only) and with old double-paned glass windows (U value >3), presenting a strong case for the retrofitting of green energy solutions into decades-old buildings.
