A Startup Is Tapping Underground Parking Garages for Clean Energy

(Bloomberg) – In New York’s underground infrastructure labyrinth, the heat, from hundreds of miles of subway tunnel to garages and shopping centers, is a clean energy gold mine. Now, a Swiss initiative wants to touch the buildings and cool buildings without making a single drilling hole.

Globally, heating is almost half of all energy consumption. According to Bloombergnef analysis, this can make a market of half trillion dollars. Using the temperature of the world offers a way to cut emissions, but traditional geothermal projects can be costly and require space to run drilling equipment, which makes them weakly forms for cities.

Startup Enerdrape’s system uses energy harvesting panels in human -made underground areas, which will allow it to gain an uprising in cities. The Swiss company focuses on old multi -family buildings, which are more difficult than new buildings. In New York, the housing structures built before 1960 make up more than 64% of housing stock, but not all are very suitable for panels.

Bnef Analyst Stephanie Diaz said, “There aren’t really many companies that,” he said. “They are really a new approach to how the buildings will be undecided”, but the company will have to find out how to scal the technology to work with a wide variety of buildings.

Enerdape’s technology is the product of decades of research under the leadership of Lyesse Laloui, a professor at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute in Lausanne. Five times the founder of the starting founder, the last 15 years underground structures will be transformed into energy sources, the question of how to transform.

Initially, he created a solution for new construction, but he noticed that he had dealt with only a small part of the decarbonization puzzle compared to existing buildings. O and his team developed a prototype heat -changing panel in 2015.

Enerdrape’s panels adhere to the concrete infrastructure that can hold large heat stores. (For example, consider how hot a subway station is in the summer.) Enerdape heats up using the prefabricated panels system that absorbs geothermal energy from the ground or air. Even if the underground areas are not overwhelmed, the floor temperature remains relatively constant throughout the year, at a depth of several meters.

During the summer, Enerdape’s system uses the underground as a heat sink to absorb and cool the temperature of a building. In winter, it makes the opposite using the floor like a battery to heat things.

The system requires the installation of a panel of one (10 square meters) panel at approximately 110 square meters of the floor area of a building. The panels work with one or more heat pumps to the liquid that passes the heat.

“Enerdape is carrying heat to the place where it is not necessary, Loria said Alessandro Rotta, founding partner and chief technology manager.

Rotta Loria, a former doctoral student of Laloui, likened it to a heat -fed underground solar panel rather than sun rays. Enerdape says that the panels can meet 100% of the need for buildings for buildings up to 10 times height.

The company, which was released in 2019, has projects in Europe, including small enterprises such as Coop Immobilier, Dentistry Office in Spain, Public Services and Multiple Swiss cities, Switzerland’s largest retailer.

He also worked with France’s largest affordable housing provider, Paris Habitat, with Engie, one of the largest gas and renewable energy suppliers in Europe to provide energy to 72 houses. Enerdape said that 145 panels provide 70 megawatt hours per year and avoid 15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, while houses cover 25% of domestic hot water needs.

According to the 2022 report from the American Energy Efficient Economy Council, a small number of companies aim at affordable housing despite many urban areas that set ambitious climate targets and increasing number of housing electrification programs. The group is the most cost -effective way to electrify the heat, affordable houses.

Thatcher Bell, leading to clean fighting programs of climate technology accelerator, said that it tends to be old buildings that are more expensive to strengthen low -income housing. High pre -cost operators for replacement, financial restrictions in these buildings, and many stakeholders reduce the likelihood of establishing new technology. The accelerator chose Enerdape for a new venture cohort, and focused on low -cost, low construction routes to reducing emissions from old units without changing the inhabitants. The need for such solutions is increasing.

In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul called on to build 800,000 electric or ready -made houses by 2030. Meanwhile, the New York City enacted a law to cope with building emissions, which make up about 70% of the city’s carbon footprint. Similar measures followed in cities such as Boston and Seattle.

According to Urban Green Council, the majority of the New York City residential buildings covered by laws are six times or less pre -war construction. This offers many opportunities for technology like Enerdape’s. However, the beginning faces some difficulties.

The adoption of the heat pump is higher in some parts of Europe, and Enerdrape will have to struggle with a slower adoption in the US due to cost. The open cost, which includes panel installation and heat pump connection, is usually between $ 100,000 to 500,000 dollars depending on the existing surface area, which can be activated as a heat source of a building. Political winds in the US are another issue and President Donald Trump restricts federal support for heat pumps.

The system can reduce electrical costs. According to the company, kilowatt can provide energy per hour per hour, compared to an average price of 17 cents per cWh per kWh. Enerdape says the solution in Europe is cheaper in Europe, where fuel costs are 3 to 5 times higher than the US.

The system will also not help larger buildings, some of New York’s largest energy users. Rotta Loria, “60 -storey high -storey thing with something we will not do much,” he said.

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