Offsite energy centre to halve build time for West London heat hub
The Green Quarter in Southall, West London is to feature an offsite-built modular energy centre for its Community Heat Hub – a concept expected to halve the construction time.
Berkeley Group has specified the Community Heat Hub from multi-utilities connections provider Power On for the Quarter Yards phase of the project, which will include 1,270 new homes. It will also supply 1,268 existing plots, thus supplying 2,538 homes in total.
Power On’s Community Heat Hub is an energy centre specifically designed to provide low-carbon heating and hot water to a residential community, featuring high efficiency, low temperature networks, and including thermal storage tanks to store heat when demand is low, allowing for grid flexibility. The Hub at The Green Quarter has been designed for future expansion, with additional footprint allowed for further plant and with buried pipework also future-proofed.
Xander du Plessis, Development Director at Berkeley Group, said:
Delivering low-carbon heat at the scale required for a development like The Green Quarter demands innovative thinking and trusted delivery partners. As we continue to deliver fantastic new homes for our customers, approaches like this will play an increasingly important role in helping us build efficiently while meeting evolving environmental standards.”
Power On notes that while heat hubs are conventionally built in the basement of high-rise buildings, this hub will have a standalone plantroom built offsite that will house the four heat pumps at the heart of the network. The modular concept will significantly reduce the build duration onsite and thus costs, the company adds.
The energy centre is expected to around 18 weeks to complete, compared to 35 to 40 weeks for a conventional configuration, with Power On assuming responsibility for the design and build of the Hub, along with the installation of over 1.7km of pipework, up to the building connection.
Alex Randall, Business Lead for Sustainable Heat at Power On said:
The Community Heat Hub is essentially ‘plug-and-play’. Whilst this is relatively common for low-rise, low-density developments, it is a new concept in the UK market to use modular Community Heat Hubs for high-rise. I believe Power On is the only company actively installing them.”
Power On and Berkeley Group are continuing a relationship built at Oval Village, which has seen a heat network for a 1,374-home development overlooking The Oval cricket ground.
