The UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has refurbished a series of heating systems at its Harwell Campus in Didcot using Remeha high-efficiency condensing boilers.
STFC is part of UK Research and Innovation and operates world-class large-scale research facilities at its Harwell Campus. As heating and hot water are typically large users of energy in a building, STFC recently carried out a series of heating refurbishments across its estates to ensure energy efficient operation.
The STFC estates team is currently simplifying the existing heating systems as well as improving their efficiency. This approach allows them to reduce energy usage while freeing up space within the boiler rooms and simplifying future associated maintenance and servicing.
The first project was to refurbish an old packaged plant room feeding two buildings. Since the installation of the original boilers, cladding and double insulation had been added to improve the building fabric. With the installed heating capacity reduced by 40%, three Remeha Gas 220 Ace floor standing condensing boilers were specified to replace the six ageing boilers. The new Remeha boilers have been connected to the site Building Management System to optimise efficient operation, with additional energy and emission savings anticipated in the region of 30%.
The second project involved combining two plant rooms, again with a view to ensuring more straightforward maintenance moving forward. With limited available space in the low-ceilinged basement boiler room, the project required compact boilers that would enable a large output to be achieved within a small footprint.
Three Remeha Gas 220 Ace boilers were selected to meet the doubled heat output capacity in this plant room.
The ability to strip out the old plant also enabled the STFC estates team to treat and remove existing asbestos.
The Remeha Gas 220 Ace range delivers higher-than-average gross efficiencies of up to 98% with low Class 6 NOx emissions and is available in 160, 200, 250 and 300 models. The carefully designed packaging of the Gas 220 Ace, combined with their low weight and integrated castor wheels, enables quick and easy installation, avoiding the need for any special equipment or cranes.
This fully modulating floor standing boiler series is supplied with onboard time and temperature controls, with direct connection to a Building Management System provided as standard to optimise heating efficiency.