BCV's Foundation rewarded Prof. Lyesse Laloui

Professor Lyesse Laloui has just been honored by the BCV Foundation, which annually awards 3 or 4 major personalities in the scientific, social, cultural or charitable fields. The prize will benefit the promotion of energy geostructure technology. Professor Lyesse Laloui was a pioneer 20 years ago and today is the world leader in the research and development of this technology. This technological revolution consists of taking advantage of the foundations of the buildings and the energy released by the subsurface to heat and cool infrastructures and buildings.

Energy geostructures solve a significant proportion of the carbon footprint of buildings, a major challenge when we know that this is responsible for more than 40% of the energy consumed in the world. This technology, developed at EPFL by Prof. Lyesse Laloui, depending on the season, supplies heating or air-conditioning using tubes inserted in the foundations at the time of construction, and meets 70% of the energy needs of buildings with renewable thermal energy.

Clean and inexpensive process
The process derives its substance from unexploited energy potentials close to the surface. From 5 meters depth, the soil is no longer affected by heat variations and enjoys a constant temperature throughout the year (13 degrees in Lausanne for example). It naturally delivers renewable energy. The technology also benefits from structural elements that are essential to any construction, the foundations. Implemented with special tubes and a possible heat pump, the latter act as exchangers, accommodating heating or cooling water. The installation costs incurred, as well as those of maintenance of a possible heat pump, are amortized in a few years.

Many applications
The innovation meets the new European and international directives for carbon-neutral buildings, even with positive energy, drawing energy resources from the construction site, and is capable of acting within a radius of 500 meters. In addition to the buildings, many infrastructures can also benefit from this technology capable of de-icing the runway of an airport or the asphalt of a deck by equipping the piers of a bridge.

From laboratory to practice
The first tests carried out on the EPFL campus by the Prof. Laloui in 1999 were a world first. Since then, the research team has managed to bring this innovation to maturity, playing a major role in the development of this globally recognized technology. But even though it is a pioneer in the field of research on energy geostructures, Switzerland is still lagging behind and is not taking advantage of its lead. Only about a hundred buildings, including a CEVA station and Terminal E at Zurich Airport, are equipped. The BCV Foundation's award should support Prof. Laloui in the large-scale diffusion of the process in new, and in particular Swiss, constructions. A quarter of them could be equipped with them, drastically reducing the environmental impact of infrastructure.