1 December 2026
Brussels, Belgium
#HPForum 2026
Award Ceremony
1 December 2026
SQUARE Brussels

EFISA Tower: Hybrid Heat Pump Retrofit of a 1970s High-Rise Residential Building in A Coruña – Renewing Energy, Improving Lives

Competing in the category:

Building Solutions Award
Location: Spain
Year of submission: 2026
Organisation: ECOFOREST · SEINGENIA · IBERDROLA
Sector of application: Residential, commercial
Funding from: Private, EU funds

Heat pumps made in Galicia by Ecoforest solve the hardest case for heat pumps in Europe’s housing stock: a 1970s high-rise with 181 occupied flats, old radiators and high flow temperatures. Not a single radiator was replaced, not a single day passed without heating or hot water, and the works were completed with zero accidents, with residents living in the building throughout. The results are measured, not simulated: in its first full year, before any insulation or solar panel was added, the heat pump plant cut the building’s energy bill by 42%. The neighbours voted unanimously for it, and every family now pays for the heat it really uses. The building also turns sunshine into stored heat: its own solar plant charges a 20,000-litre thermal battery that the heat pumps draw on, and its new façade generates electricity with integrated PV glass. And a cool fact: the towers stand on the site where Estrella Galicia brewed its first beer — today they are proof that the 1970s apartment blocks in every European city can go fossil-free with heat pumps.

Torre EFISA (A Coruña, Spain) is a 1974 complex of seven connected towers, 6 to 20 storeys high, with 181  homes and 72 shops, built on the site of the first Estrella Galicia brewery. Heating and hot water came from  central gas boilers dating from 1997–1999 (2 × 1,581 kW plus 233 kW), with no individual metering.

The goal was to decarbonise heat while the building stayed fully occupied, without replacing the radiators in  181 homes. The solution is a heat-pump-first hybrid plant: two 85 kW Ecoforest ecoGEO+ HP inverter heat pumps, Galician-made, working as air-source units, supply the existing radiators at up to 60 °C, while two 610 kW condensing gas boilers remain only for peaks and back-up. A 20,000-litre buffer acts as a thermal battery charged by a dedicated 35 kWp PV array, plus 99 kWp of shared PV (100 modules + 152 Onyx BIPV panels); three substations replace the old risers, and wired M-Bus meters bill every home for the heat and hot water it actually uses.

The heat pump retrofit alone halved final energy use in its first full year. Combined with the envelope renovation, non-renewable primary energy falls by 84.7% and the EPC improved from E to A.

https://ecoforest.com/es/proyectos/torre-efisa-innovacion-geotermica-en-el-corazon-de-a-coruna/

https://www.agalegaaudio.gal/videos/detail/219100-galicia-por-diante-videopodcast-14-02-2025

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