West Dunbartonshire Council

Queens Quay Heat Network

Executive Summary

The Queens Quay Heat Pump scheme is the largest of its kind in the UK and will take heat from the River Clyde and use it to heat local homes and businesses. The project is particularly exciting as it will demonstrate the viability of large-scale heat pump projects in the UK. To design water source heat pumps, it is essential to fully understand the water source and for the Queens Quay project this is a tidal, saltwater river which is under the protection of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and has a range of both plant and aquatic life.

  • reducing-carbon (1)
    £15m contract value
  • reducing-carbon
    409 tonnes carbon reduction in first year
  • award
    3 National Awards

Project Overview

The Queens Quay development in Clydebank will transform the former John Brown Shipyard from an industrial landscape to a vibrant, diverse and architecturally engaging community.  The plans for the 23 hectare site will create 1,000 private homes, 200 rented homes and the associated infrastructure to support them such as a health centre, care home and commercial facilities.

The site already included four existing buildings; Titan Enterprise Business Centre, Aurora House council offices, Clyde Bank College and the Clydebank Leisure Centre and these will be integrated into the new community.

The project is ground breaking in many ways, but one of the truly exciting aspects is that it will feature Scotland’s first major Water Source Heat Pump, taking heat from the nearby River Clyde and pumping it to customers through a system of buried district heating network.

The project received £6m in funding from the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Project.

Our Solution

Pump Delivery

The developers and the council had ambitions of making this Scotland’s “greenest town” and stated three core ambitions for the energy infrastructure:

  • Lower bills for residents offering a reduced tariff and no costs for servicing or repairs
  • Reducing carbon emissions through the use of an innovative water source heat pump.  The eventual savings after build out will be equal to the total carbon footprint of over 1,240 local residents.
  • Increased security of supply ensuring a minimum of down time and constant access to heat for all customers.

By the bid stage, the client and their consultants, Ramboll had created a RIBA stage 3 design based on their heating demand estimates and specified two x 2MW water source heat pumps as well as additional boilers and ancillary equipment.

To make the scheme financially viable, the clients entered into an Invitation to Negotiate, in which interested contractors could explore options for reducing the CAPEX needed to bring the project to market.  Whilst we always apply the principals of value engineering to reduce the cost of a project, in this instance we were also able to make a significant financial contribution towards the cost of the project.

Solution detail

Fantastic design from Vital – really impressive. They have added value all the way through the scheme. What was designed, wasn’t fit for purpose so Vital worked with the design to ensure the solution was right for us and the scheme. Vital have also assisted us with the modelling and we wouldn’t be where we are without Vitals help.

Jim McAloon, West Dunbartonshire Council, Strategic Lead Regeneration

Key Benefits

Queens Quay

Download Project Case Study Queens Quay Case Study 0.54 Mb
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