A Swedish hospital stores winter snow and pumps its meltwater through the building in summer

According to Science Direct, the hospital's annual cooling demand is about 1,000 MWh. A hospital in central Sweden found an unusual way to meet its summer cooling needs by storing snow from winter and using it months later. The Sundsvall Regional Hospital uses a large snow storage system designed to preserve winter cold until the warmer months.The Sundsvall hospital has a floor area of 190,000 square metres. According to Science Direct, the hospital's annual cooling demand is about 1,000 MWh, with a maximum cooling power requirement of 1,500 kW. The local authorities were looking for a cooling solution that fitted environmental targets and national regulations.The findings of the project were published in a 2001 research paper by Kjell Skogsberg and Bo Nordell in Cold Regions Science and Technology.A large snow storage areaThe snow storage facility was built in 1999. It covered an area measuring 140 metres by 60 metres and had a total capacity of 60,000 cubic metres, equal to about 40,000 tonnes of snow.At the beginning of the project, only about half of the total storage capacity was expected to be used. The storage area was built as a shallow pit with a watertight asphalt base.Th...