Going underground to store heat energy

When it opens in September 2007, Howe Dell School in Hatfield will be the first building in the world to use ThermalBanks and Interseasonal Heat Transfer to store summer heat for use in winter. This article by Amanda Birch appeared in Building Design Magazine in March 2007.

IHT balances heating and cooling demands within a building, and between seasons. IHT collects heat from asphalt solar collectors, "waste heat" from chillers or surplus heat from solar thermal panels and stores this in ThermalBanks. IHT delivers heat for space heating (or hot water) from ground source heat pumps linked in to its warm ThermalBanks.

IHT also collects "coolth" in winter in order to be able to deliver critical period cooling in the exam season in summer.

Read more about the Persians, the Moguls and invisibility in: BD Building Design online

Howe Dell School - Solar Collector in construction

Better building physics

Some quotes from the article:

The beauty of ICAX’s inter-seasonal heat store is that it’s invisible.

Apart from the obvious benefits, the technology has no negative environmental or planning issues. It does not require a licence, as open loop boreholes do, or an environmental impact study, as wind turbines do. It has no emissions, makes no noise, and is virtually invisible.