{"id":4694,"date":"2026-10-16T13:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T12:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ehpa.org\/heatpumpforum\/?post_type=awards-projects&#038;p=4694"},"modified":"2026-10-19T08:32:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T07:32:33","slug":"the-mill-that-powers-and-heats-its-neighbours","status":"publish","type":"awards-projects","link":"https:\/\/ehpa.org\/heatpumpforum\/awards-projects\/the-mill-that-powers-and-heats-its-neighbours\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mill That Powers and Heats Its Neighbours: an aquathermal heat network for heritage homes powered by its own hydropower"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\">The goal of this project was to heat nine existing homes and apartments at the historic watermill of Rotselaar (Belgium), the site where energy cooperative Ecopower was founded, entirely without fossil fuels.<\/div>\n<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\">Existing and heritage buildings are among the hardest to decarbonise. Deep renovation is often impossible, outdoor units are unwelcome on heritage sites, and individual heat pumps for nine separate households would be costly and inefficient. Small collective heat networks for existing homes did not yet exist in Flanders.<\/div>\n<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\">EXTRAQT designed an innovative solution where a submerged heat exchanger placed in the river Dijle, directly behind the mill\u2019s water wheel, extracts heat from the flowing river (average flow ~5 m\u00b3\/s). A cascade of water-to-water heat pumps upgrades it to 50\u201360 \u00b0C for space heating and domestic hot water, distributed through a 300 m insulated micro heat network. The heat pumps run on green electricity from the mill\u2019s own hydropower plant, and an additional heat pump recovers waste heat from the turbine\u2019s generator and gearbox.<\/div>\n<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ewa-rteLine\">The result is a fully local, 100% renewable heat supply on a now fossil-free site, owned by citizens through the cooperative, and the first aquathermal heat network for existing homes in Flanders.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4696,"template":"","awards-edition":[47],"awards-country":[52],"awards-categories":[29,62],"class_list":["post-4694","awards-projects","type-awards-projects","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","awards-edition-47","awards-country-belgium","awards-categories-innovation-award","awards-categories-nominees"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Mill That Powers and Heats Its Neighbours: an aquathermal heat network for heritage homes powered by its own hydropower - 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