Heat Pumps Today

26 As part of its Zero-Carbon Schools Initiative, Managing Contractor ReEnergise is transforming the carbon footprint of St George’s College by installing four heat pumps. June | July 2022 I N S T A L L A T I O N S “Students have thoroughly enjoyed learning about renewable energy and how natural heat from the ground can be harnessed. We now can’t wait to have our new ground source heat pumps operational, so that we can know heating the school and using hot water here is from energy generated in a completely renewable way.” Initial groundworks have been completed at a large heat pump installation at St George’s College Weybridge in Surrey. In late January, the sole remaining drilling machine made the last of 132 bore holes in fields that will be returned to use as sports pitches and for outdoor events. Now follows the installation of four 230kW Viessmann Vitocal 300-G Pro ground source heat pumps, which replace the school’s previous gas heating system as the main heat generator in an adapted plant room in the college’s Kean Building complex. Once commissioned, the new heating system will save about 250 tonnes of CO 2 per year. The managing contractor for the project is ReEnergise – architects and enablers of net-zero plans and programmes specialising in schools and colleges. ReEnergise designed the solution in collaboration with St George’s College Weybridge and in particular, Estate Manager, Errol Minihan, who is spearheading a future-proof approach to reducing the school’s reliance on fossil fuels and introducing a sustainable technology solution. St George’s College Weybridge was founded in 1869 and is an independent Catholic co-educational day school for 11-18 year olds with around 1,000 students. The heat pumps will be installed by Aston Cord Energy Services who have also prefabricated the 10” internal diameter distribution header into which the bore hole loops and the heat pumps will be connected. Doing this work osite ensures high quality, minimises disruption and keeps logistics to a minimum. The borehole drilling at St George’s College Weybridge has been undertaken by Oxfordshire-based AW Synergy, with the rest of the groundworks being handled by K Watts Construction and the school’s dedicated grounds people. Powercor is managing the electrical works. The Zero-Carbon Schools initiative was started by Steve Faucherand, CEO, and the team at ReEnergise, due to their passion for creating a greener environment for future generations. The team actively promotes the national net-zero agenda, within the industry and in the classroom, and are currently supporting 50 schools and colleges to optimise projects at various stages of the decarbonisation process. February 15th 2022 Borehole drilling is completed at 900 kW ground source heat pump installation at St George’s College Weybridge