ADR Consulting Engineers were appointed to complete BSRIA Stage 4 and 5 designs for John Sisk’s 4500m² welfare facility for Quintain’s Wembley project, by Solaris Energy.
As part of our design service, we carried out detailed thermal modelling, running multiple annual simulations to accurately predict space heating and cooling profiles and resulting annual operating energy consumption. This allowed us to obtain the most efficient solution for the new energy plant system design. Due to the nature of heat pumps and a need for optimisation at the design stage, we had to ensure sufficient data was available to allow the selection of accurate low temperature and chilled water operating parameters for the facility.
The design of internal distribution systems consisted of a simple 4-pipe fan coil and radiator installation, selected and adjusted to work at lower temperatures associated with optimal heat pump performance. All designs were produced in Revit and full calculations were made available to the team to ensure transparency throughout the BSRIA BG6 aligned design process.
Working closely with Solaris Energy, a highly skilled and qualified heat pump specialist contractor here in Canterbury, we provided numerous design options for energy efficient mechanical comfort control systems within the building and assisted with heat exchange plant selections over several iterations of design development. The aim was to develop a containerised heating and cooling solution to replace typical VRF systems that are rarely repurposed at the end of a construction, in order to reduce operational energy and waste between sites.
The concept solution was to create a closed loop system using two water source heat pumps, dry air coolers, buffers, plate heat exchangers, pumps, water treatment and controls, all in one fully packaged 20ft shipping container!
Following several iterations of the design, Solaris elected to install a pair of @Kronoterm Water Source Heat Pumps. Kronoterm provided controls expertise to the project, producing robust controls hardware and software to ensure all the design parameters were achieved.
The container was built and tested offsite at Solaris’ HQ here in Canterbury and delivered to site by local logistics specialists @RS French.
@Halsion were appointed to install all building side mechanical services, consisting of a mixture of 4-pipe fan coils, radiators, domestic services and all interconnecting distribution systems.
Once on site, the teams from Solaris and Kronoterm made light work of commissioning the energy plant.
The key to the project’s success, was a truly collaborative approach and good vision from all parties involved. The client was fully engaged throughout the process, providing in house expertise from their building services division and making historic operating data available for their sites. This allowed us to accurately benchmark the systems during the early stages to ensure the solution would be a viable alternative to standard VRF and electric heating solutions.
It is very rare that such an opportunity arises to conduct truly innovative design work and this project is proof that with good collaboration, even the most experimental of ideas can be designed and realised in a short period, with great operational success.
The system continues to operate, producing simultaneous heating and cooling at SCoPs in excess of 5, from a small container and will be moved to the next large scale project when work is complete at the Wembley site. To date the system has allowed @Johnsisk to reduce their transformer sizes and significantly lowered both CO2 emissions and operational costs associated with their site.
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