HotRiver
Since
Solution Overview
for
Buildings and urban districts face rising energy costs and increasing pressure to decarbonize heating and cooling. Yet in dense urban areas, renewable heating and cooling solutions are often hard to deploy or hard to make profitable. Geothermal systems require drilling, land availability and high upfront investment, while air-source heat pumps can create noise, visual impact and performance issues. Real estate developers and construction players need compact, low-carbon energy solutions that reduce operating costs, fit into constrained urban environments and deliver a strong return on investment.
Our Solution:
EnRDock is a modular floating hydrothermal platform that supplies buildings and urban districts with heating, cooling and domestic hot water by capturing thermal energy from rivers, lakes and other surface waters.
Installed directly on the water, close to the buildings it serves, EnRDock uses submerged closed-loop heat exchangers connected to a standard geothermal heat pump, with no water pumping and no water discharge. It delivers geothermal-level performance, reaching up to SCOP 6, while requiring half the upfront investment of conventional geothermal systems. This enables a return on investment up to twice as fast and delivers the lowest costs per kWh on the market.
Beyond energy, EnRDock creates a new financially valuable surface on the water. Its upper deck can host a pier, waterside café, public space or any floating facility, turning energy infrastructure into a revenue-generating real estate asset.
How it works:
EnRDock combines a patented hydrothermal technology with an innovative real estate model for energy infrastructure. Proven through more than 15 years of operation and over 100 installations in the Paris region, it captures thermal energy without water pumping, discharge or drilling. Compared with conventional solutions, it offers high energy performance while creating new usable waterfront space and additional urban value.
Classification & Use Cases
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Impact & SDGs
Contribution to any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals:
EnRDock contributes to SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy by turning rivers, lakes and other surface waters into a local renewable energy source for buildings and urban districts. By supplying heating, cooling and domestic hot water with geothermal-level performance and low operating costs, it helps reduce dependence on fossil fuels and makes clean energy more accessible.
It contributes to SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure by introducing a patented, modular and industrializable hydrothermal platform that can be integrated into dense urban environments without drilling, water pumping or discharge.
It supports SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities by helping cities and real estate projects decarbonize buildings while creating new usable surface on the water, such as piers, public spaces, waterside cafés or other urban assets.
It contributes to SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production through a repairable, reversible and modular infrastructure designed to optimize resource use, limit land consumption and extend the lifetime of energy systems.
EnRDock contributes to SDG 13 – Climate Action by reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to heating and cooling, major sources of energy consumption in buildings.
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Team & Organization
Founding team:
Malek Boussalem – CTO (Chief Technology Officer)
Malek Boussalem is an engineer and scientist. He is the inventor of HOTRIVER’s hydrothermal technology, patented in 2014, and is currently filing two new patents related to the company’s next-generation solutions. He has entrepreneurial experience and has held technical leadership positions in major industrial groups, including Alcatel and Philips. He leads HOTRIVER’s R&D, technology strategy and industrialization.
Tom Boussalem – CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
Tom Boussalem holds a Master’s degree in Management and a research master’s degree from IAE de Lille, a recognized French business school. He has been leading Enys for 6 years, a company specialized in installing HOTRIVER solutions for small-scale residential projects on houseboats. He is responsible for HOTRIVER’s overall strategy, business development and operational management.
Nina Boussalem – CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)
Nina Boussalem holds a Master’s degree in Management from a IAE de Lille, a recognize french business school. She has 3 years of experience as Marketing Director in a french startup. She is responsible for HOTRIVER’s marketing strategy, communication, offer positioning and brand awareness across its target markets.
