Member Article

North West Cambridge – District Heating Spine Complete

We are delighted to announce that we have successfully completed the 2.5km district heating spine on the first phase of the North West Cambridge Development.

The installation provides the District Heating pipework for the project across the 150-hectare site, allowing for the distribution of low carbon heat and hot water across the site which will eventually include 3,000 homes, accommodation for 2,000 postgraduates, 100,000sqm of academic research and development space and community facilities including a supermarket, school, hotel and care home.

Steve Webster, Vital Energi’s Contracts Director explains, “This is one of the most ambitious developments in the UK and the University has designed it to achieve the highest environmental standards. The District Heating mains are an essential part of the low carbon infrastructure and we were delighted to deliver such a key part of this fantastic project which will deliver heat and hot water for decades to come.”

The installation programme provided several significant challenges and suffered from terrible weather in the first few weeks of the project, but despite this was ahead of schedule by the fourth week and all milestones were met along the way. The 2.5km district heating spine is made up of 300mm Logstor pipe with 150mm twin pipe branches and we are delighted to have won further district heating lots on the site which our project teams are now delivering.

Gavin Heaphy, Construction Director of the North West Cambridge Development: “The University’s investment in the district heating network with the energy centre will provide energy efficiencies for the users of the site. The ambition for the development is to be an exemplar of sustainability and through the network, along with other unique and innovative methods, we will achieve something quite special on the site.”

There will be phased completions for the first phase of the North West Cambridge Development which began in autumn 2015 and will continue through to 2017.

If you’d like more information on Vital Energi’s experience of working on district heating and cooling networks please visit http://www.vitalenerginetworks.co.uk/

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gordon Coates .