Ever stand barefoot on pavement in the middle of the summer? If
you have, you probably didn’t stay there long. That’s because
asphalt and tarmac absorb the sun’s rays, storing heat in the
ground, and on the hottest days, one can actually see the heat
radiating from the streets. A Dutch company thought that heat
would be best captured and saved for the winter. Ooms Avenhorn
Holding AV first conceived this idea 10 years ago, and it
intended the stored heat to keep the roads warm in the winter
when ice and snow were inevitable. Ooms installed the system in
Avenhorn, a village in northern Holland. However, the company
found it had leftover heat that the roads didn’t need. “We found
we were gathering more energy in summer than we needed, so we
asked a building contractor what we can do with the extra
energy,” said Lex Van Zaane, Ooms’ commercial manager. The
contractor told Ooms to construct buildings near the road, and
pipe hot water under the floor. The system works with a grid of
flexible, plastic pipes, which