A residential building in Louvain is being heated by the Dyle river, which flows through the city. This is the first example of aquathermy in Belgium.
The former Dyle mills were converted to a 35-flat building in 1985, currently housing commercial spaces, catering and offices. The structure was also insulated during the renovation, meaning its energy demand is significantly lower than other buildings from the same era.
This low energy demand and an ideal riverside location led to the current project that is testing aquathermy, a technique that extracts heat from surface water for building use.
The Dyle’s water is pumped, filtered, and passed through a heat exchanger to draw out the heat. This then goes into the building’s heating systems, with a heat pump elevating the water temperature to 42 °C. Better still, the building's current heating infrastructure requires no modification, meaning that the new mode of heating can be easily connected. After its heat exchange journey, the river water is returned to its source.
A backup gas boiler remains in place. Stijn De Jonge, Extraqt co-founder (the company managing the installation) expects that 80 to 90% of the heating will be done through aquathermy, decreasing the building’s CO2 emissions by 42%. "The potential for this technology is immense – we foresee 300 similar projects in Louvain alone, without overloading the Dyle."
