Nordhavn – the city district of broad horizons
It is Scandinavia's largest urban development project. Over the next 50 years, Copenhagen's Nordhavn will become a district of 40,000 residents and 40,000 workplaces. And EnergyLab Nordhavn – with Danfoss as its partner – is where the future of energy solutions is happening.
Murmansk. Bilbao. Aberdeen, Southampton. Dunkirk. Nordhavn's street names invoke the taste of salt water that encrusted the prows of the great merchant vessels of old. At the end of the 1800s, they arrived from all over the world to dock in the northern part of Copenhagen harbor, where Frihavn ('free port') was established, beyond the mainland and the customs border of the Danish Kingdom.
The transformation
Ten years ago, an international design competition was launched, seeking ideas for the development of Nordhavn as a solution to the growing population in the Danish capital. The aim in transforming the old free port into an attractive city district is to enable people to stay where they would most like to live.
Since then the district has seen huge activity and been developed by CPH City & Port Development, owned by City of Copenhagen and the Danish State.
Since then the district has seen huge activity and been developed by CPH City & Port Development, owned by City of Copenhagen and the Danish State.
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And it is here that EnergyLab Nordhavn provides direction to Copenhagen's ambition of becoming the world's first carbon-neutral capital city in 2025. The aim of the project is to develop and demonstrate the energy solutions of the future and to show how electricity, heating, energy-efficient buildings and electric transport can be integrated in a flexible, intelligent and optimized energy system based on sustainable energy.
Danfoss owns three of the 15 demonstration types that make up EnergyLab Nordhavn.
"If we seize the opportunity that we have in Nordhavn, our products and solutions will set the direction for the future. We will be able to determine the output of our units at a specific point in time, based on the information fed in by for example the energy system. This is what we have to resolve – and it is here in Nordhavn that we can resolve it," says Danfoss' Project Manager in Nordhavn, Jan Eric Thorsen
At Havnehuset in Nordhavn's Århusgade district , also known as Den Røde By (the red city) and once home to Nordisk Film, Danfoss is testing a system that does not exist anywhere else: flexible, ultra-low temperature district heating. Using a large centralized heating "booster" substation that produces hot water for the 22 apartments in Havnehuset, a foundation is being laid for ultra-low temperature supply or return water. This is especially relevant in that energy sources can be tied in that are only able to deliver low temperatures or deliver a low temperature but with greater effectiveness.
"Hot water will be the same temperature as usual, but return water at a lower temperature should not be wasted, and this is highly relevant," says Thorsen, explaining that a demand-led energy system will be replaced by a supply-led one, which means that it avoids drawing on the district heating and electricity systems during peak periods.
The buildings in Nordhavn are so solidly built, with such a "thermal weight", that they hold heat – as it were – long after the heat supply has been turned off.
The buildings in Nordhavn are so solidly built, with such a "thermal weight", that they hold heat – as it were – long after the heat supply has been turned off.
At the harbor-side Terra Nova building, Danfoss has supplied 85 apartments with another kind of intelligence: a control system that in principle means that residents "place their thermal capacity at the disposal of others". They accept that other people's use of the system can affect their heating – in return, they get heating at its cheapest price without experiencing any change in the level of comfort.
A new supermarket will soon open at Nordhavn. Here, the aim is to apply Danfoss technology to reuse the surplus heat generated by the chillers, sending it out to Copenhagen's district heating network. Danfoss has already proven that as much as 95 per cent of supermarkets surplus heat can be reused.
"Even if sustainable energy has become cheaper, it is still important that energy is used in an intelligent and efficient way. Efforts to increase energy efficiency and supply technologies should be seen as correlated and not as contradictory. EnergyLab Nordhavn shows how this can be done, sensibly," says Jan Eric Thorsen.
Facts: Winning an award
Facts: Winning an award
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At the beginning of 2018, EnergyLab Nordhavn won the Danish 'Energi- og Miljøprisen', an energy and environment award.
Published by Danfoss
Text and video: Søren Lintrup Silkjær
Photos: Glenn Simonsen
Text and video: Søren Lintrup Silkjær
Photos: Glenn Simonsen
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Nordhavn – the city district of broad horizons
Winning an award
