Category: Energy

Landmark sustainable building supplied by ThamesWey

WWF-UK ‘The Living Plant Centre’

The world’s leading conservation organisation, WWF-UK has connected its new UK HQ building (‘The Living Plant Centre’) to ThamesWey’s low carbon energy supply in Woking town centre.

Designed by internationally renowned architects Hopkins, The Living Planet Centre aims to be an exemplar of sustainable design and construction. It includes features to reduce energy and water use and is powered via its connection to ThamesWey’s Woking town centre energy station. The building was opened by Sir David Attenborough in November 2013 and accommodates over 300 staff as well as a visitor and education centre.

Using CHP alongside PV

ThamesWey’s 1.4 MWe Combined Heating and Power plant (CHP) supplies ‘The Living Plant Centre’ and the public car park over which it has been constructed with low-carbon electricity via our private wire 11 kV electricity network. The power supplied is also used to generate heating and cooling from the on-site Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP).

The building also receives some of its power from the 410 solar panels on the roof, with any surplus electricity generated that is not used on-site being fed back to ThamesWey’s private wire network for distribution to ThamesWey’s other customers.

Achieving BREEAM ‘Outstanding’

In addition to its work on wildlife conservation, WWF champions all aspects of sustainable development and so set the very highest standards for its headquarters. The building was designed and constructed to be one of the ’greenest’ in the UK, and by connecting to ThamesWey’s low carbon energy network it has helped the building achieve the highest BREEAM rating of ‘Outstanding’. Only 24 buildings worldwide have reached this standard in the six years prior to 2013.

Enabling Green Retrofit of Commercial Buildings

Hollywood House is a 1980’s five story building which was dated and expensive to run for the main tenant Skanska Rashleigh Weatherfoil. When the lease was up for renewal, Skanska proposed to the landlord Prupim to refurbish the building to maximise its energy performance.

In 2011, the decision was taken to carry out a comprehensive refurbishment of the building to create a highly sustainable workplace that was designed to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Commercial Interiors Platinum certification.

The refurbishment of the 1,574m2 of office building took 32 weeks to complete and involved the installation of new heating, lighting, ventilation and energy management systems, and the incorporation of raised floors and suspended ceilings.

A major part of these works included connecting the building to ThamesWey’s heating and power network in the town centre. Both Prupim and Skanska worked closely with ThamesWey Energy to calculate the cost benefit of these connections.

The building’s existing gas boilers were replaced with a new plant room that sources efficient and low-carbon district heating from the Woking Town Centre Energy Station. The energy station has a 1.4 MWe Combined Heating and Power plant (CHP) that now provides Hollywood House with low-carbon heating, hot water and electricity from the heating and the private wire network.

Hollywood House was the first commercial office building in Woking to be retrofitted to the energy station and provides an exemplar of co-ordinating a major refurbishment scheme with connection to the district heat and private wire networks. The building uses individu- ally zoned areas for heat distribution via sensors and radiator con- trol valves to optimise low return temperatures to the heat network whilst achieving comfortable average temperatures throughout the building.

In 2011 Hollywood House achieved a 32% CO2 emissions saving compared to grid electricity which significantly helped Skanska towards their efficiency targets. Additionally by connecting the building to the heating network Hollywood house gained an extra 11% CO2 emissions reduction while also removing the need for on-site gas fired boilers.

Supplying Major New Buildings – Network Rail HQ

When Network Rail decided to locate its national centre in Milton Keynes, high on the list of priorities for the new HQ was to make the building as sustainable as possible.

The 37,000m² four storey building achieved a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ design stage rating. It became fully occupied in September 2012 and accommodates over 3,000 people responsible for national co-ordination of Network Rail.

Connection to ThamesWey’s district heat and private wire networks was a key contributor to the building achieving BREEAM Excellent.

Supplied with both heat and power from our 6MWe CHP station, Network Rail have been able to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the building whilst also benefitting from the very high levels of resilience required to co-ordinate operation of the national rail network.

ThamesWey’s engineers worked with Network Rail’s design team to deliver the connection on time and ensure the building became fully operational by the project deadline. Connecting the Network Rail site to ThamesWey Central Milton Keynes required the installation of over 1,500m of pipework and private wire electricity cables.

ThamesWey supplies nearly 10 million kWh of energy to Network Rail annually, and reducing carbon emissions by approximately 700 Tonnes of CO per year.

Buildings connected to the ThamesWey Energy’s CHP energy station in Central Milton Keynes can reduce their carbon emissions by up to 30% per year when compared to conventional forms of energy supply.

ThamesWey Energy (Woking Town Centre)

In May 1999, Woking Borough Council set up its first Energy Services Company, (ESCo) ThamesWey Energy Ltd, to build and operate a low carbon CHP energy station in Woking town centre.

 

 

ThamesWey Energy Ltd (TEL) partnered with Xergi A/S, a Danish CHP design and build company to build and maintain its energy station in Woking town centre, and a second station in Woking Park Leisure Centre. These installations provide low carbon heating, cooling and electricity to buildings within Woking town centre including the Civic Offices, HG Wells Conference Centre, the Big Apple entertainments complex, DoubleTree hotel, YMCA, Enterprise Place apartments, the Peacocks shopping centre, the Lightbox museum and gallery, WWF-UK Headquarters, Victoria Gate, Cornerstone and Woking Leisure Centre and “Pool in the Park” swimming pool.

ThamesWey generates more than 10 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of low carbon electricity and 9 GWh of heat from its energy stations in Woking.

That is enough to provide electricity and heat to over 2,000 households. Over 170 business and domestic customers are supplied with electricity and heat from our energy stations.

Every year, TEL saves over 1,400 tonnes of CO2 by supplying low carbon energy generation from its energy stations within Woking.

  • Supplying energy to public sector, commercial, charity and residential customers
  • First CHP generated multi customer district private wire network in the UK
  • Set up by Woking Borough Council as a Joint Venture with Danish partners

Key Information

  • Operating Since
    1999
  • Tri-generation
    (CCHP)
  • 1.6 MWth Deutz
    Engine
  • 1.4 MWe