Technical Tour to a 1100 m² Solar Heating System with Heat Pipe Collectors & Sampol

Host: Mallorca (ES)
Date: March 28th, 2015

The hospital Son Espases possesses Mallorca's largest solar collector installation. About 365 collectors with an area of more than 1029 m2 were installed on the rooftop of one of the hospitals extensions. The collector field is supposed to provide the hospital with hot water at low temperatures (around 60ºC). One of the heads of the hospital's facility management, who is now responsible for operating the plant, showed the facilities to the participants of the technical tour. The participants got access to all the facilities and had the opportunity to ask questions.

The hospital Son Llàtzer recently invested in a combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP) system which helps to save about 55% of its energy consumption and, in addition, reduces its cost annual CO2 emission by 6804 tons. The system makes use of the waste heat from a conventional electricity generation cycle to supply hot water and cold air to the internal grid at the hospital.

The primary energy cycle runs with natural gas, while an absorption chiller and four condensation chillers provide cold air. A co-worker from the maintenance service of Sampol, the company which realized the project, was showing the group around and answered questions of the participants. The company Sampol is partner of the SHINE project and it hosts a PhD student who works on southern European district heating.