Commercial Sector Heat Pumps

Commercial Sector Heat Pumps
Danfoss Heat Pumps UK (formerly knows as Eco Heat Pumps) have completed many varied projects over the years. A range of projects that we have completed are profiled below.

Nature Reserve Visitor Centre Case Study
Offices & Industrial Unit Case Study
Housing Association Case Study
Garden Centre Case Study
School Case Study
Health Centre Case Study
Commercial Barn Conversion Case Study
Sports & Community Centre Referbishment Case Study

Nature Reserve Visitor Centre Case Study - Nottingham

Attenborough Nature Reserve is situated in the Trent Valley on the south-western edge of Nottingham and consists of 240 acres of flooded gravel pits with associated marginal vegetation on a site of approximately 360 acres.

The Visitor Centre houses facilities including meeting rooms, education facilities, interactive displays, a nature shop, and a café. A key strategy was to design a building using renewable energy resources sufficient to meet its annual energy needs, thus achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions.

The building envelope is super insulated, typically 300-350mm thick rockwool, and the high levels of insulation in the walls, floor and roof minimise heating requirements, resulting in an overall heat loss of only 15kW for the whole building.

A Thermia heat pump is installed to provide heating and hot water for the Centre by utilising energy from the lake. Additional heat is provided by roof mounted hot-water solar panels, and the heat from both sources is stored as hot water in an insulated thermal store. This supplies underfloor heating throughout the building and hot water to thekitchen, toilets and classroom.

Lifetime Savings: = £27,000*
Carbon Savings: = 225 Tonnes

Heat Collector: 2 x 200m Pond Loops
Heat Pump: Thermia Diplomat
Heat Distribution: System Wet Under Floor
Build Type: New
Property Size: 400m²
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.

Offices & Industrial Unit Case Study - Grimsby

Elecref Ltd makes control systems for the food industry. They built their new premises in 2003 after twenty years in their previous location. All of the heating and domestic hot water in the new building is now provided by the heat pump system.

Space heating is provided within the offices and assembly areas using under floor heating. Passive and active cooling is also provided by the heat pump using a ducted air system. The underground heat collector is a horizontal slinky based system.

Lifetime Savings: = £35,000*
Carbon Savings: = 300 Tonnes

Heat Collector: Horizontal Closed Loop
Heat Pump: Eko
Heat Distribution: System Wet Under Floor
Build Type: New
Property Size: 400m²
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.

Housing Association Case Study - Stornoway, Isle of Lewis Scotland

Six new houses built for New Valley Housing Association have ground source heat pumps installed. The heat pumps provide all of the space heating and domestic hot water requirements for the occupants. Each house has either 75m or 100m of borehole drilled.

The heat distribution system is underfloor on both floors with traditional slab construction downstairs and 'Lewis' plates with a cement screed upstairs. This gives a reasonable thermal mass in the upper floors.

The heat pumps are Thermia Diplomat units that include a 150 litres mains pressure hot water tank. Space heating is controlled using weather compensation, which means the units are always 'scavenging' to keep the occupants warm at the lowest distribution temperature. This reduces energy costs and CO2 emissions. Running costs are estimated at £160 per year.

Heat Collector: Vertical Boreholes
Heat Pumps: Diplomat
Heat Distribution Systems: Under Floor
Domestic Hot Water: Integral 150 Litre Tanks
Build Type: New
Property Size: Various
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.




Garden Centre Case Study - Nairn, Scotland

Broadley Garden Centre at Nairn near Inverness was designed and built by Innova House Ltd Innova House supply packaged timber frame systems that are energy efficient, low maintenance and built using non-toxic and recyclable materials. The natural compliment to this was to provide heating and hot water using renewable energy with one of our ground source heat pumps.

Space heating at the garden centre is by an underfloor system and the domestic hot water uses a 500 litre mains pressure tank all fed from the heat pump system. The heat collector is a straight pipe closed loop based system installed under the garden centre's car park.

"Three quarters of the Garden Centre's energy consumption is solar energy taken from heat stored in the car park! This means that the garden centre has reduced its greenhouse gas polluting emissions by over 60% compared to a normal heating system."

Lifetime Savings: = £39,400*
Carbon Savings: = 345 Tonnes

Heat Collector: Horizontal Ground Loops
Heat Pump: Thermia Robust
Heat Distribution System: Wet Underfloor
Domestic Hot Water: KBH 500 litres
Build Type: New
Property Size: 450m²
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.

School Case Study - Wormholt Park Primary School, London

One of our systems has been installed to heat a new teaching space at this inner city school. Domestic hot water is also supplied from an integral 150 litres. The building is timber framed with cedar on plywood external cladding and is extremely well insulated. Our heat pump was a natural addition to compliment its already 'green' credentials.

A horizontal ground loop is installed to collect the heat and under floor is used for the space heating.

Lifetime Savings: = £12,000*
Carbon Savings: = 90 Tonnes

Heat Collector: Horizontal Ground Loops s
Heat Pump: Diplomat
Heat Distribution System: Under Floor
Domestic Hot Water: Integral 150 Litres
Build Type: New
Property Size: 120m²
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.

Health Centre Case Study - Family Cancer Information & Support Centre, Norwich

This innovative circular building, part of Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, will be heated using one of our systems, which will also supply the domestic hot water. Because of limited space on site to install horizontal ground loops and restricted space in the plant room, our new Atria air sourced system was the ideal choice.

Lifetime Savings: = £24,000*
Carbon Savings: = 210 Tonnes

Heat Collector: Air Handling Unit
Heat Pump: Thermia Atria
Heat Distribution System: Wet Under floor
Domestic Hot Water: Integral 180 Litres
Build Type: New
Property Size: 250m²
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.

Commercial Barn Complex - St Ingunger, Cornwall

This is a fine example of a large barn complex and the use of ground source heat pumps. The site has a large adjacent field in which the ground loops are installed. A number of barns are fed from a central unit to create a mini district-heating scheme.

Lifetime Savings: = £60,500*
Carbon Savings: = 545 Tonnes

Heat Collector: Horizontal Ground Loops
Heat Pump: Thermia Robust
Heat Distribution System: Under floor
Domestic Hot Water: None Required
Build Type: Commercial Offices
Property Size: 815m²
* Based on 25 years running costs compared with oil-fired boiler with 75% efficiency and annual servicing cost of £100. Electricity at 7p/kWh and oil at 3p/kWh - not including replacement boiler.

Sports & Community Centre Referbishment Case Study

COMMUNITY CENTRE SAVES OVER 60% ON HEATING BILLS WITH HEAT PUMP - Danfoss Heat Pumps, formerly Danfoss Heat Pumps UK, recently helped Woolsery Sports & Community Centre in Devon to reduce its heating bills by nearly a third, following installation of ground source heat pumps. Prior to fitting the heat pump, the cost of running the centre with an oil based system had been £11 a day. Following installation, this was cut to just £4 a day which represents a saving of nearly £2,500 over the year. Woolsery Sports & Community Centre was built in 2000 in Woolfardisworthy, which is an isolated rural parish in North Devon, with substantial funding from the Sports Lottery, after demonstrating the innovative and ecological design of the proposed building. Initially, an oil based heating system was installed partly because of the low price of oil at the time and also because of a lack of awareness of the benefits of heat pump technology. In addition to the heat pump, the upgrade also involved fitting wind turbines and PV solar panels on the roof. The electricity generated from this is used to drive the heat pump, making the heating system completely carbon neutral. However, because the heat pump only uses a minimal amount of electricity, the surplus is used for the lighting in the centre, with the majority then being fed into the National Grid.

Gale & Snowden, the architects of the project, which specialises in ecological developments incorporated a range of high performance products in the original design of the centre, including super-insulation, thermal mass floors and triple glazed timber windows.

A spokesman from the company explains: "We were looking at creating a building that had significantly less environmental impact through reduced carbon emissions and improved energy efficiency. The end result was a credit to the community who were involved in the overall design concept." Fitting the heat pumps in the refurbishment in 2007 was the final part of creating a modern highly sustainable building. To maximize the benefit from the heat pump, the centre incorporated under floor heating to all the rooms. Brian Butler, the estate manager at the centre, explains: "We are highly delighted with the heat pump and have been amazed by the savings. The heat pump was the only part of the insulative and heating areas of building that was upgraded last year, so it gave us the exact savings versus the oil based system. With oil prices rising dramatically in recent months, we are delighted that we are no longer dependent on fossil fuels and can control our costs much better."

Although the initial cost of a heat pump is higher than for conventional heating, there is help available for public sector and charitable organizations in the form of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme phase 2. The Woolsery centre took the route of applying for a grant under this scheme and received up to 35 per cent towards the total installation costs. A change in the programme from April 2008 means that similar developments may now receive up to 50 per cent towards the total costs.

Please browse our website for more information about Commercial Sector Heat Pumps and our range of Heat Pumps then contact us on 0114 270 3900 to speak to one of our team or complete the enquiry form on the website.