World-wide operating company uses enercret, August 2005

At the moment the new Logistic Centre of Hilti AG is being constructed in Nendeln ( Liechtenstein ). The building with a gross floor area of about 13.000 square meters has to be put on a piling foundation due to bad soil condition. That provides the opportunity to use renewable geothermal energy for heating and cooling.

This is the first time we used hollow concrete piles of the Swiss company SACAC. The enercret®   tubes were inserted into the hole in the middle of the piles. All in all 160 piles with an average length of 40 meters were converted into energy piles which provide 510.000 kWh/yr for heating and 134.000 kWh/yr for cooling.

Cooling is achieved just by "free cooling". This means that in summer just the cool sole in the energy piles circulates and transports the excess of heat from the building into the underground. This type of cooling works nearly without any energy input because only the circulation pump needs to be working. With "free cooling" it’s easy to keep the strict regulations of Liechtenstein for cooling buildings.