The UK’s pioneer of
domestic district ground source heat pump systems, Kensa Contracting, has
secured the contract to deliver England’s largest shared ground loop heat pump
system with ENGIE.
Four hundred flats
over eight tower blocks in the London borough of Enfield will be retrofitted
with Shoebox heat pumps manufactured by Kensa Contracting’s sister company
Kensa Heat Pumps, and connected to the largest collection of district arrays of
its kind.
Planned for
completion in October 2018, the heating upgrade will result in residents’
energy bills reducing by 30-50%.
Dr. Matthew
Trewhella, Kensa’s Contracting Director comments: “This project is an excellent
example of how district heating can be rolled out using the shared ground loop
system architecture.
“One of the great
strengths of this system type is its flexibility and scalability. Shared ground
loop systems can be featured in developments of just two properties
(micro-district) whilst this project clearly demonstrates how the concept can
be scaled up to much larger systems.
“Not only do ground
source heat pumps provide the lowest cost heat, they also deliver substantial
carbon savings, and landlords benefit from the exceptionally low servicing and
maintenance costs.”
The district ground
source heat network system at Enfield will feature 16 shared ground loop
systems serving the eight tower blocks. Each district system will typically
consist of clusters of eight boreholes serving individual heat pumps installed
within the flats of half a tower block.
This system
architecture allows each resident to select their own preferred energy supplier
to access the best available electricity tariff. The shared nature of the
ground array design also reduces drilling costs - typically the most
cost-prohibitive aspect of a ground source heat pump installation – and ensures
funding through the Energy Company Obligations (ECO) Scheme as well as the
Government’s Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), securing Enfield
Council quarterly payments for 20 years.
With typically two
thirds of the heating sourced from the ground, the borehole installations will
provide an infrastructure which will deliver an affordable heat and hot water
solution for the Enfield tower blocks for generations.
Drilling of the
boreholes has already commenced with one site’s groundworks completed in time
for the new year.
