The Viikki campus of the University of Helsinki is a concentration of teaching and research in life sciences, agriculture and forestry, and pharmacy and veterinary medicine. The Viikki campus employs nearly 1,900 people and has more than 6,000 students on campus.

The University of Helsinki’s Viikki campus introduced the Ecowec hybrid exchanger in April 2016. The University of Helsinki produces hot steam for laboratory and dairy production. This hot steam is used for washes required by the veterinary and food sciences to disinfect and sterilize used instruments. Hot steam water has previously been cooled with cold tap water before the condensate is discharged into the sewer, causing a significant water charge on the property and energy loss that has not been utilized before.

In an Ecowec hybrid exchanger above 100 ° C, the steam condensate is cooled by circulating the ventilation network and heating the hot water to about 20 ° C before it is fed into the property’s sewer system. The benefits of the system are savings in the purchase of district heating energy and cold tap water, which have previously incurred significant costs in the form of energy, water and wastewater charges.

The University of Helsinki is satisfied with the energy and water savings brought by Ecowec. The university’s maintenance staff believes that Ecowec is also suitable for many other properties at the University of Helsinki and also for other universities and research institutes.

The Ecowec hybrid exchanger competes for profitability even alongside renewable energy sources such as solar electricity and solar heat. Steam condensate provides more than 1,800 kW of energy per day, which corresponds to the output of several hundred solar panels. Ecowec requires only about 2-4 m² of installation space, which is a significant advantage when installing the system.