BACKGROUND
This Grade II* listed building in London, overlooking the River Thames at Tower Hill was acquired by a global high-end hotel brand to be converted into a development comprising an exclusive hotel, members-only club and serviced apartments. Ardmore was the Developer & Building Contractor enlisted on the job. Having worked with Ardmore on a number of projects in the past, once again they approached us to provide the power solution. Our task was to reduce the energy cost of running the building and improve its sustainability credentials.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
To meet the spatial challenge we surveyed the ingress route in great detail. The route was then lined with protective measures to ensure no damage occurred to the historic fabric of the building during install. A turbo-charged CHP of this size normally needs a dry-air cooler radiator, to cool the gas and air mixture going in to the engine. This is known as intercooling. Such a radiator needs to be placed outdoors to shed the heat energy. It couldn’t be placed on the roof and the building was landlocked – meaning the footprint of the building occupies the entire site; immediately outside the building walls is public space. We overcame this by designing a special version of the unit called TA-70, which achieves the intercooling by utilising the secondary circuit water going into the building. Exhaust gases could only leave the building through a flue discharge in a concealed location on the top storey. This made the flue run very long and increased back-pressure issues. To overcome this we designed a bespoke fan-assisted flue system.
SOLUTION
Installation of a Cento T160 164 kW indoor acoustic canopy CHP unit, located in the basement, 2 floors below street level, without any visible changes to the external fabric of the building. This bespoke solution met all requirements for the premises.