Work has commenced on the installation of new lower-carbon heating systems for two of Woking town centre’s landmark buildings. Woking Borough Council-owned offices Export House and Midas House will be retrofitted with a new low-carbon heating system which will slash greenhouse gas emissions from these buildings and completely eliminate the use of gas boilers on site.
The age and construction of these buildings has required the development of an innovative combination of low carbon heating technologies. First, a combination of subsurface and above-ground insulated pipework will deliver low temperature hot water from ThamesWey’s new energy centre in Poole Road to each building. Part of this heat will then be ‘intelligently’ boosted in temperature by localised heat pumps to work with the constraints of the older building design.
ThamesWey Energy will carry out the work on behalf of the Council, which is expected to take up to 4 months and generate savings of more than 7,000,000 kg carbon dioxide emissions, over the next 25 years . ThamesWey worked with Woking Borough Council to secure £3.1m of grant funding from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) for this project.
Upon completion, each heating system will be closely monitored to understand the real-world efficiency of the arrangement, with the aim that additional buildings of this age can follow this template and join Woking’s new low-carbon heat network. The project has been commissioned in support of Woking Borough Council’s target to decarbonise it’s estate by 2030, and the Council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan.