“To start with we’re planning on heating our own facilities, but hopefully we can connect to the district heating network in the future,” said Halmstad cemetery administrator Lennart Andersson to the Aftonbladet newspaper.
Andersson explained that the idea came up after a recent environmental review of the crematorium concluded that new ovens would be needed for the facility to reach certain benchmarks.
“After all this talk about the environment we realized we should take advantage of the heat created during cremation,” he said.
Andersson hopes the cemetery’s plans don’t offend anyone, insisting the effort is being undertaking strictly on the basis of its environmental benefits.
“There won’t be anything different about the ashes,” he said.
The city hopes to have its new energy source up and running by 2010