Milk used to heat castle

Warm milk is being used to heat up Wapnö castle outside of Halmstad in Sweden. The heating system uses energy from the milking of the castle's 1,000 cows.

Wapnö castle's herd produces some 30,000 litres of milk per day. The milk leaves the cows at a temperature of 37 degrees centrigrade and is quickly cooled to 3 degrees to preserve its quality. In a drive to be more environmentally-friendly Wapnö castle has developed a way to collect the energy used in the cooling process to heat up the castle and other buildings.

Lennart E Bengtsson, Wapnö MD understands the surprised reactions saying that "sure it is difficult to believe, but there is energy left over when cooling the milk from 37 to 3 degrees centigrade. We collect that energy."

The excess energy is currently used to heat hot water and the staff room but is in the process of being connected to the central heating system and will be used to warm up the castle and workshop buildings.

The new system will replace the 15-17 cubic metres of oil previously used to heat up the castle. "The oil-fired boiler in the castle will now be removed and scrapped," Bengtsson says.