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DACHS supports sustainability target at London's score project

A DACHS mini-Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit supplied by Baxi Technologies UK, part of the Baxi Commercial Heating Division, has been installed at a groundbreaking sustainable community project in Leyton, London.

SCORE, a £9.9 million community, sports and healthcare project close to Leyton Orient Football Club, is a unique concept of a community-owned and managed facility. Its physical development has been managed by English Partnerships, the national regeneration agency, along with a number of local and regional community, sports and health agencies.

SCORE accommodates a number of community, sports and health services as well as offering some of the best community and sports facilities, including football pitches, indoor volleyball, tennis, basketball and netball courts, a multi-use games area, indoor community halls, a nursery and health facilities.

The project has been developed to be truly inclusive, with members of the local community consulted in the decision making process throughout the design and construction. The project has also retained a clear focus on the use of sustainable technologies with the DACHS mini-CHP unit installed as the lead heating appliance at the facility for space heating and domestic hot water production. The DACHS unit and associated equipment was installed by Cambridgeshire based company Aqua Mechanical Services, the main mechanical and electrical contractor on the SCORE project.

CHP is an extremely efficient way of generating electricity and producing heat simultaneously at the point of use from a single fuel. Using natural gas, the DACHS unit, in addition to providing heat, will supply SCORE with a proportion of the building’s electricity requirements operating in parallel with the local electricity supply infrastructure.

The standard natural gas fuelled DACHS unit provides 12.5kWth of heat output and 5.5kWe of three-phase electricity. However the DACHS installed at SCORE has been supplied with an exhaust condenser to increase the unit’s heat output by around six per cent and improve its thermal efficiency. This is possible due to the low water return temperature of the heating system design. As a result, it is anticipated that the overall fuel efficiency of the DACHS will increase from 79 per cent to around 82 per cent (Gross Calorific Value of natural gas), improving the economic and environmental benefits of the
CHP unit installation.

An array of photovoltaic (PV) panels has also been installed at SCORE, which use the solar energy of the sun to generate renewable electricity. To visibly demonstrate the environmental benefits of the combination of the DACHS unit and the PV, a display panel has been installed in the reception of the building. Signals representing the amount of electricity generated by both sources will be fed into a display panel along with the quantity of electricity being imported from the grid.

The environmental gain through the use of CHP is considerable when compared to large conventional centralised electricity plants where the heat produced in the generation process would normally be directed into cooling towers, discharged to the atmosphere and wasted, leading to low overall plant efficiencies. One of the keys to maximising the environmental benefits is to ensure that the available heat output from CHP is fully utilised to displace fossil fuel used by other heating appliances at the property.

In the case of SCORE, and based on the predicted running hours, it is estimated that the DACHS unit would reduce CO2 emissions by around three tonnes per annum, a saving of around 20 per cent when compared with electricity generated by centralised power plants and heat only boiler plant.

Yan Evans is national sales and marketing manager for Baxi Technologies UK. He comments: “It is exciting to be involved in such a landmark sustainable community project. The SCORE team, along with English Partnerships, has created a project which benefits both the environment and the local community.

“The public sector is showing increasing interest in the DACHS units as a vehicle for delivering significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Applications have now extended from residential schemes (typically sheltered accommodation, extra care schemes and social housing developments) to projects such as SCORE and other public sector buildings such as a police station, fire station and primary school. All these projects have had a strong environmental sustainability agenda within their specification.”

Baxi Technologies UK’s DACHS mini-CHP unit is ideal for many types of applications where heating and hot water is provided from a centralised plant room, which can all benefit from the energy cost savings and environmental benefits provided by mini-CHP. Funding may be available to support feasibility studies and the capital cost of implementing schemes within the public sector. DACHS units have already been installed successfully in a large number of properties in the UK, some of which have now been in operation for over two years, delivering financial and environmental benefits to variety of end users.

Email: yan.evans@baxitech.co.uk