With district heating, we make good use of society’s leftovers

The principle is simple: We heat water in our production plants, which is then pumped into the distribution system and to our customers’ buildings. The energy we use to produce district heating comes primarily from forest industry residues and society’s sorted residual waste. By making good use of and extracting energy from society’s various residual products, district heating is resource-efficient – it is based largely on energy that would otherwise be lost. We provide a community service (waste treatment with energy recovery) that integrates two societal needs (waste treatment and heating), and through incineration we also purify the cycle of substances we want to remove, such as heavy metals.

The surplus becomes district cooling for our customers

We use seawater cooling, excess cooling from heat pumps used to produce district heating, and chillers to cool large amounts of water, which is then pumped to our customers to cool their buildings. The excess heat collected from district cooling customers is largely recycled as district heating, thanks to the large integrated heating and cooling systems. The surplus energy is used for heating and, during the summer, mainly for domestic hot water. Stockholm has possibly the world’s largest district cooling system, with district cooling available virtually everywhere in central Stockholm and some other areas of the city.