Products: education

Regulating valvey

Building services provider SES specified Oventrop Aquastrom T Plus multifunction valves to control the heating and domestic hot water at two new schools in Guildford, Surrey. SES says the valves provide significant energy savings by controlling temperature and flow in the domestic water systems, and also facilitate hydronic balancing. The valves were installed in Pond Meadow school and its sister school Christ’s College, which were designed by Atelier Ten. The Aquastrom T Plus installed on the DHW return keeps the hot water in the return pipe above 57C, which is said to prevent the risk of legionella bacteria growth.

Lighting control

RIDI Lighting’s Class Control lighting system, has been installed at Burnham Copse primary school in Tadley, Hampshire. The system allows staff to match lighting conditions to their requirements via a tailored control interface. The interface, based on the DALI protocol, allows staff quickly and simply to alter lighting levels via a handheld remote or wall-mounted panel. The system has daylight sensors which automatically increase or decrease output, reducing energy consumption.

Mike Attard, head of RIDI UK, said clients in the education sector were demanding more sustainable products, and faced pressure from some students to be environmentally conscious.

Shutters

Charter-Integr8 shutters were included at Newark primary school in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, as part of the building’s energy efficient design. The perforated shutters allow natural light to filter into the classrooms even when they are fully closed. The red and green shutters also act as protection against vandalism and add a splash of colour. The Scottish government is using the £10m newbuild project as an example of best practice for other school projects to follow.

Air handling

The Orchards Federation, a primary school in Bolton, has installed fans and air-handling units from Elta to improve energy efficiency. Each of the 13 first-floor classrooms has an Elta Revolution SLC315 axial fan, which is fitted with adjustable pitch impellers, factory-set to maximise performance. Elta’s 149-EVFD/18-1 inverter controllers were also installed in the ceiling space, giving staff full manual control of the heating and ventilation. The ground-floor classrooms were fitted with bespoke low-profile heat recovery units designed by Fastlane Ventilation Equipment. Reverse purging supplies the classrooms with cool air for the morning start.

Thermal stores promise £170,000 annual saving for university

Warwick University has installed one of the largest thermal store projects in the UK, a move that is expected to save about £170,000 a year in energy costs.

Daly Engineering Services was appointed to improve the energy efficiency of the generators and boiler plant serving the university’s district heating system.

Working with the M&E design consultant Couch Perry & Wilkes, Daly identified peaks and troughs in demand that could be evened out with the use of thermal stores, large vessels that hold 200,000 litres of water. These allow heat energy produced from the electrical generation process to be stored and used later as demand requires.

The thermal storage operates by recovering heat, some of which is a byproduct of the onsite electrical generation, and storing it in the two vessels. When needed, this heat is released to the district heating system to provide heat and hot water to more than 60 university buildings. The process saves energy and reduces carbon emissions.

The two thermal storage cylinders are a little over 10m high and were made by a specialist company in Nottinghamshire at a cost of £80,000 each. They were lowered into position beside the existing boiler house to reduce system losses and to minimise the amount of pipework required.

Since the thermal stores were installed the university has been able to review the control strategies for the district heating network, reducing the overnight heating load to the campus.

Gerard Hunter, the university’s mechanical services design engineer, said it was one of the largest thermal store projects in the UK. It is expected to save about 4.2m kWh of energy a year, with an associated saving of 800 tonnes of CO2, which equates to an annual saving of £170,000.

Hunter said: “This project highlights the university’s commitment to energy efficiency and the environment, with a total potential energy stored within the two vessels of 20MW.

“With the capital investment in the project totalling about £400,000, the university is expecting a payback on capital within three years.”