H2College
Herning, Denmark

PROJECT TEAM & PARTNERS

• Building owner: The housing association of Fruehøjgaard
• Architects: Aarhus Arkitekterne
• Engineers: NIRAS
• Micro combined heat and power plants: Dantherm
• Electrolyser: GreenHydrogen.dk
• Hydrogen distribution: Naturgas Midt-Nord
• Knowledge center: Hydrogen
• Innovation & Research Centre

SPONSORS Danfoss and the municipality of Herning

BUDGET € 8,800.000 - Private funding of € 8.250.000 & Public funding of € 550.000

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

In the outskirts of Herning close to the education facilities of the University of Aarhus, Institute of Business and Technology (AU-IBT) and TEKO (Scandinavia's largest design and management school within the fashion and textile industry) the housing association of Fruehøjgaard has built 66 college apartments and a new student house combining the latest green technologies in a futuristic conglomerate.

The households will be supplied with renewable energy primarily from wind turbines and hydrogen/fuel cells, but also from heat pumps using geothermal heating. This means that there will be no CO2-emissions at all! Furthermore, the households are constructed as passive houses. The passive house concept comprises a building with an extremely low energy need for space heating (less than 15 kWh/m²/year). Key elements are a high thermal insulation of the building envelope (walls, windows etc.), air tightness of the envelope and heat recovery in the ventilation system.

Compared to buildings fulfilling the Danish national building codes, energy savings of 90% for space heating are achieved. But passive houses are not only about energy saving - as measurements in hundreds passive houses show, both thermal comfort and air quality are much higher than in "normal" houses.

The consortium behind the FCHS (fuel cell household systems) part of the project include research institutions, an electrolyser manufacturer, a FCHS manufacturer, a heat storage manufacturer, the local municipality, consulting engineers as well as a local natural gas company (hydrogen grid provider). In a longer term perspective their involvement is necessary to secure a portfolio of competent subsuppliers and to establish the necessary framework conditions.

Since this is the first project of its kind in Denmark, a large number of practical issues have to be looked into such as safety approvals of individual components as well as the entire system, taxation issues, agreements with the local electricity company as well as the TSO, Energinet.dk.

To ensure the maximum output of the experimental building activity a thorough evaluation and measurement phase has been commenced. Also a consumer questionnaire will be passed around looking into indoor climate conditions and more.

CHALLENGES FACED

The hydrogen elements of this demonstration project will be running for two years, meaning that the households will receive their heat and electricity from hydrogen produced by an onsite electrolyser and micro combined heat and power plants (MCHPs) producing hydrogen at night when the price on electricity is cheap. This part of the project faces some challenges:

• MCHPs are not yet a commercially viable solution and public funding is needed. It has taken a while to ensure this public funding.
• The lifetime of MCHP systems leaves room for improvement. Dantherm Power, the project partner producing the MCHPs, is constantly working on this issue as it is one of the focal business areas of the company.
• The cost of the hydrogen technology is relatively high and field testing is needed. This is exactly why this demonstration project is of so high importance.

These are just a few challenges facing the hydrogen part of the project. Furthermore, it has been difficult to locate Danish manufacturers of passive house elements - causing a wandering eye to the neighboring Germany. Hence all the passive house components have been purchased in Germany and installed by German craftsmen.

INNOVATIVE PRACTICE

The whole project as such is innovative, because it the first building project in Europe - and perhaps in the world - integrating energy technologies such as wind turbine electricity, hydrogen technology, passive house technology and geothermal heating technology in one singular building project. The result is no CO2-emission at all in regards to the energy consumption of the households, which is an indicator of the ultimate way of building new houses in the future.

Furthermore, the project has employed following innovative practices:

• Cross cooperation between different demarcations in the projection phase as well as in the construction phase involving the craftsmen, the architects, engineers and many more. This helped the implementation of the new ideas. Furthermore, the innovative practice ensured that the total construction expenditure stayed within the framework of regular building expenditure - and actually 8 % below.
• Promoting a behavioural change among the residents - not only to use CO2-neutral energy sources, but to consume as little energy as possible. Regarding space heating the consumption goal is less than 15 kWh/m²/year. The project has received additional funding from the Danish Energy Association to support this initiative.

LEGISLATION

The project opens up to following legislative suggestions to support the market introduction of the green technologies:

• Introducing a pricing system corresponding to the system for solar cells will give a much better price for electricity sold to the grid. Buying electricity on the spot market while getting a much higher selling price would further the market introduction of MCHPs.
• Harmonizing certification procedures of passive houses in the EU would make the cross-border cooperation much easier. Right now the European countries are speaking in different tongues. Furthermore, there are no certification authorities and procedures in Denmark right now, but fortunately this is under way.
• Flexibility in relation to European tender procedures would ease the administrative burden of a demonstration project.

LESSONS LEARNT

The lessons learnt in the project are yet to be documented in regards to the interaction between the different energy technologies. Also the consumer evaluation is yet to be made. But the construction phase has provided following inputs for similar projects:

• The areas of responsibilities have to be made clear from the beginning.
• The consultant sector in Denmark is rather conservative in regards to the implementation of new energy technologies. So in the introduction phase of new energy technologies a lot of patience, explanations and convincing are needed.

CONCLUSIONS

The course of the evaluation phase is being planned in the spring of 2009 and will be implemented during the next two years, but here is an extract of suggested targets to be documented in a technical report:

• Evaluation of preconditions and calculations of the energy consumption of the households stated in the projection - summing up low energy demands, passive house standards and construction possibilities.
• Documentation of the energy standard of the central building parts - in the factory, at the building site and at the delivery.
• Documentation of the actual energy consumption during a longer consumption period in relation to preconditions and calculations of the consumption of the single households as well as the total consumption.
• Description of the residents' evaluation of the indoor climate and energy consumption environment measured against their initial expectations.

CONTACT DETAILS
Director of the housing association of Fruehøjgaard
Bjarne Krog-Jensen
Tel: +45 97 21 43 44, e-mail: bkj@fruehojgaard.dk

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