A brand new
residential development in Manchester is meeting environmental planning
requirements thanks to an Ecodan system providing community heating to 105 new
homes.
The Aaben, a modern
development in Hulme, is a mixture of apartments and town houses. Designed with
energy efficiency in mind, the homes include a range of features that will
benefit the environment and reduce residents’ energy bills.
The original design
was based on a ground source heat pump, but the costs proved prohibitive for
the required budget, so design consultant Engineering Design Partnership (EDP)
was tasked with value engineering the scheme.
“Following the
successful installation of a Mitsubishi Electric air source heat pump system on
a previous residential scheme, we recommended the Ecodan ASHP system as we knew
it would perform well, and offer a cost-efficient solution for The Aaben,” explained
Dan Martell, Design Engineer, EDP.
Installation company
Proline was brought on board to install eight CAHV-P500YA Ecodan systems on the
main roof of the development. These provide hot water to a heat interface unit
located within each dwelling, providing hot water and heating for the occupants.
Each tenant is charged accordingly via a heat meter measuring how much heat
energy is taken from the network.
“The Ecodan system
was perfect for this project as the units are designed to meet the heating and
domestic hot water requirements for all apartments or houses via a district
heating system. As the system is located on the main roof, there were some
sound issues to overcome but these were easily resolved with the erection of an
acoustic wall to prevent sound breaching the plant area,” said Paul Gledhill,
Project Manager, Proline.
The CAHV Ecodan
system boasts a capacity of 344kW and can operate at sufficiently high
temperatures to provide heating and domestic hot water. A 6,000-litre buffer
also enables the system to store energy for short peak demand periods.
Thanks to the
installation of the Ecodan system, The Aaben is eligible to benefit from the
non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). The RHI scheme provides financial
incentives to increase the uptake of renewable heat with eligible installations
received quarterly payments over 20 years.
