At the 15th annual Heat Pump Forum in Brussels, hosted by the European Heat Pump Association, the 2025 awards celebrated innovation across five categories. The coveted Lighthouse Award was presented to The Thermo-Road, a flagship project well known by members of Thermonet Europe.
Søren Erbs Poulsen from VIA University College, who submitted the project, proudly accepted the award on behalf of the team.
Project leader Søren Erbs Poulsen:
“We are deeply honored by this international recognition. The Thermo-Road demonstrates how decentralized, resilient solutions can ensure local energy security amid growing geopolitical challenges. For local communities, it delivers affordable, stable heating and cooling while protecting homes from floods and heatwaves. For society, it offers a scalable, low-risk solution that can be rapidly deployed in areas where district heating isn’t viable or where new developments require cooling.”
This groundbreaking project, funded by the Danish Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Programme (EUDP), brought together expertise from multiple members of Thermonet Europe. VIA University College led the initiative, with PlanEnergi providing best-practice insights and cost analysis. HakaGerodur supplied geothermal heat exchangers, Dantonit provided grout for shallow geothermal boreholes, and Bravida installed the thermonet, which supplies energy to 12 Metro Therm Delta geothermal heat pumps located in the connected buildings.
Discover more about this innovative project: Roads of the future can provide heating and cooling via thermonets and protect against extreme rainfall
The Thermo-Road’s impact continues to grow. Ongoing data collection from the thermonet is analyzed and utilized in three new research initiatives:
- THE CHANGE, a transatlantic project supported by Geothermica and national sponsors.
- COOLGEOHEAT, a Scandinavian collaboration funded by Interreg ÖKS (European Regional Development Fund).
- HEATCODE, a Danish project backed by ELFORSK.
Below is an image of THE CHANGE researchers visiting the Thermo-Road in 2024.
The houses on the Thermo-road in Hornsyld look ordinary but are unusual in that they are supplied via a thermonet with both heating and cooling extracted from the road structure, which beneath the asphalt can also collect extreme rainfall. Researchers and commercial actors from the USA, Sweden, and Norway visited the project in December 2024 to learn from it.
