The Large Hadron Collider. Credit CERN
A new heat recovery system at CERN is reusing hot water from part of the Large Hadron Collider’s cooling system to heat nearby homes and businesses.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s biggest particle accelerator, is a 27-kilometre ring with eight surface points. One of them, known as Point 8, hosts the LHCb experiment and sits close to the French town of Ferney-Voltaire.
What if the world’s largest particle accelerator could also provide heating? That’s now a reality. Since mid-January, waste heat from the LHC has been fed into a local heating network serving a new residential and commercial area in Ferney-Voltaire.
Heating homes with the Large Hadron Collider. Credit CERN
The heating network, officially launched on 12 December, is expected to provide enough heat for several thousand homes. By replacing gas and other fossil fuels, it will prevent the release of thousands of tonnes of CO₂.
At Point 8, equipment such as cryogenic systems must be cooled with water. As this water flows through the machinery, it absorbs heat. Instead of being wasted, that heat is now captured and reused to warm buildings in the surrounding area.
“Typically, hot water would then pass through a cooling tower, releasing heat into the atmosphere so that the cooled water could be reinjected into the equipment,” explains CERN’s energy coordinator, Nicolas Bellegarde. “In the new set-up, hot water initially passes through two 5-MW heat exchangers, which transfer thermal energy to the new heating network in Ferney-Voltaire.”
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