Royal Arsenal Riverside - CHP Energy Centre & District Heating

The phased nature of the development required the design of an overall RIBA stage 3 district heating masterplan.  Critically, this approach to design allowed us to calculate the pipe sizes to ensure optimum capacity, whilst keeping the route flexible. This allows the developer to have flexibility in the sequence of construction and bring phases forward if necessary.

Additionally, developers often need to install certain areas of infrastructure early, such as pipework which would run under access or service roads, and having the overall masterplan enables our team to make these installations which then integrate with the larger system at a later date.

In 2011, we connected a further 290 homes, known as The Warehouse, as well as a number of commercial buildings, including a leisure centre. At the same time, we installed a 2.5MW boiler, associated pipework, and made modifications to the building management system controls to accommodate additional heat and hot water demand.

Throughout the project, Vital Energi has paid special consideration to the requirements of the local environment and the residents of adjacent buildings.   This has seen us take every effort to ensure noise was kept to a minimum during the installation work.  We also specified a CHP with a catalytic reduction system which reduced NOx emissions to 20mg/kWhr, which met the stringent air pollution control regulations and we carried out extensive atmospheric dispersion modelling to ensure the installation complies with the Clean Air Act legislation.

In 2012, Vital Energi was commissioned by Berkeley Homes to carry out a feasibility study into extending the scope of the district heating network and energy centre to accommodate the entire future capacity of the site.  The initial calculations concluded that the thermal output of the energy centre needed to be increased to accommodate a 15 MW peak load requirement for the development, resulting in the CHP capacity increasing to 2.4MWe.

This was essential to meet the planning requirements which stipulated that a minimum of 65% of the site’s annual heat demand come from CHP. The study also investigated the best use of the limited available space in the energy centre for additional plant.

The initial, primary challenge was that the footprint was not large enough to accommodate the full range of plant and equipment needed to deliver the increased capacity.  Working closely with Berkeley Homes & SSE we created a 3-level, multi-mezzanine solution which accommodated the new plant and equipment, but still performed optimally.  The steel structure also had the additional benefit of supporting the weight of the equipment, meaning none of the load was carried by the walls of the structure.

The layout of plant was devised to enable a phased installation to suit the construction timetable and minimise initial expenditure whilst retaining adequate access for maintenance.  Fitting the energy centre into the given footprint was commercially important as it maximised the lettable area of the development.

Our work on this latest phase included work on 266 apartments, bringing the overall total on the development to 562.

Vital Energi’s involvement in this project stretches back 10 years, which has allowed a continuity of vision and we are now seeing the practical benefits of the future proofing measures incorporated into the design stage.

We have worked closely with the ESCo provider, SSE, and the developer, Berkeley Homes, maintaining strong working relationships and providing input into the planning of energy provision to meet the needs of the development as it is constructed.