Nightclub recycling body heat in bid to decrease carbon footprint

By Hamish Morrison via SWNS

A nightclub is recycling body heat in a bid to save 60 tonnes (66 tons) of carbon per year.

SWG3 in Finnieston, Glasgow, Scotland is launching pioneering technology called BODYHEAT to cool down some parts of the building and warm up others.

The technology is expected to be installed and fully operational by February 2022.

Managing director Andrew Fleming Brown, 44, hopes it will help shave at least 60 tonnes off of their carbon footprint in its first year.

The venue - which hosts gigs, club nights, and artists’ studios and events - will use a system designed by David Townsend of TownRock Energy and Harley Haddow Ltd.

It stores the body heat from clubbers in boreholes in the ground and reuses this to heat other parts of the building or cool down warmer areas.

The first phase of the scheme cost around $508,440 (£375,000), half of which came from a Scottish Government grant and the other from a Scottish Government loan.

“There’s not much to see, physically, because the holes are in the ground and the internal system is like a conventional air-conditioning heating system," Andrew said.

“It’s obviously captured the imagination of people throughout the world.

“When you talk to people about it they say, ‘It’s crazy we’ve not been doing this before.' It’s not new technology - it’s just innovative application of that technology.

“It will feel just like a normal heating and air conditioning system. It’s not going be like dirty sweat or dirty heat coming back in, which is something I got asked.

“The air condition has filtering systems in it so it’s only heat being transferred back to the boreholes, there won’t be sweat droplets running down the pipes.

“It will operate like a conventional system. The only thing that will be different will be that we are able to cool the venue much more efficiently.

“That’s the main challenge - trying to cool it is really difficult, our cooling load is far greater than our heating load. We have an excess heat load which we’re going to use in other parts of the building.

“It’s only the events spaces that require cooling in Scotland, that is why it's an efficient system for us. Because we have artists’ studios and a cafe and restaurant, that requires an ambient heating load.

“With the excess heat, that is what we are going to be using.”