Minister Bussemaker opens unique sustainability project on the Amstel

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Between Art and Greenhouse: Hermitage Amsterdam and Hortus Botanicus connected to one heat and cold source

On 2 September 2015, in a working visit to the Hermitage Amsterdam and the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, Minister Bussemaker handed over the first decision in the Pilot Sustainability State Monuments for the project Between Art and Greenhouse. Energy Sharing on the Amstel.

With this progressive and cost-saving project, the two institutions will be sustainably connected by 425-metre-long pipes over the next year. Thus, the accumulated source heat of museum Hermitage Amsterdam can be used to heat the plants in the monumental Palmenkas in the Hortus Botanicus and the Hortus supplies cooled water back to the Hermitage for cooling the art.

The project has been named an exemplary project by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science as part of the new Policy Document on Sustainability for State Monuments. This morning, the project was presented to the minister and explained in more detail by those involved during a walk from the boiler house under the Hermitage Amsterdam to the Hortus greenhouses.

Photo Evert Elzinga:
from left to right: Jet Bussemaker, minister for OCW; Cathelijne Broers, director Hermitage Amsterdam; Taeke Kuipers, director Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam; Sebastiaan Lagendaal, head of Facility Management and Security Hermitage Amsterdam.

Cooperation
The reason for the cooperation between the institutions was the Hermitage's search for a solution to the heat surplus in its thermal energy storage (cogeneration) source. When the Hermitage was built in 2009, technical services provider Kuijpers installed a thermal energy storage system for heating and cooling the exhibition halls. In daily use, more cooling than heating was required. To put the structural heat surplus to good use, the Hermitage, together with Kuijpers, started looking for possible partners. The solution turned out to be just over four hundred metres away: the greenhouses of the Hortus have substantial heat requirements for their (sub)tropical plants. As the Hortus was just about to replace its twenty-year-old gas boilers, the Hermitage's phone call came just at the right time.

Special and innovative
Both organisations involved were willing to look 'beyond their walls' and thus arrived at this innovative solution. The project involves the application of techniques already proven in practice. What makes it special is the relatively large distance to be bridged between the Hortus and the thermal energy sources of The Hermitage. In addition, the control technology for the special climate specifications of both the Hortus flora and the Hermitage art is very complex. The development of a joint, sustainable power plant for heating the greenhouses and simultaneously cooling the exhibition halls differs from the well-known energy-saving measures at national monuments. It is not the building envelope that is being addressed - insulation - but the fossil energy-based heating (and cooling) systems that are being replaced by using natural heat and cold from the ground. As a result, no changes need to be made to the monumental building structure of the Hermitage and the modifications to the Hortus' greenhouses are relatively limited. Both parties expect to start using the shared, sustainable energy source in the third quarter of 2016.