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The new Bramall Learning Centre at the RHS Garden, Harlow Carr, Harrogate, is expected to achieve one of the highest BREEAM ratings ever achieved by a bespoke building in the UK, making it absolutely as green as you can get. The innovative design of the Learning Centre includes virtually all established energy saving or conserving systems, including triple glazing, a sedum roof, water harvesting, solar panels, a wind turbine and heat pipes. It even has the most sensible of facilities, the automatic opening of windows for ventilation when conditions make it advantageous! Also, essential for the water heating system, it has a NIBE F1330-22kW heat pump sourced from boreholes drilled in rock under the topsoil in the open area surrounding the new building.
The Learning Centre combines library facilities with training areas and lecture rooms, interactive covering a total of around 710 square metres on two floors in the 56 acre garden. In addition to the not inconsiderable hot water requirements of the building for washing and cooking, both floors have underfloor heating, in a total of fourteen zones. THis major energy requirement is met from the latent heat in the rock beneath the centre that maintains almost constant temperature throughout the year. The heat from this is collected from five boreholes - three 100 metres and two 50 metres deep - and passed to the NIBE F1330 heat pump which by advanced heat exchange systems concentrates the energy. The heat generated is then passed via a NIBE UKV "surge" vessel designed to maximise hot water capacity to a NIBE VPAS accumulator tank, just about the most efficiently insulated storage unit available.
The system will work in partnership with other alternatvie energy sources in particular solar and, although energy efficiency testing is still under way, it is confidently expected to satisfy all the hot water needs of the building.
It is entirely appropriate that a hot water heating system should be installed by HT Energy Limited, of Swainby in Yorkshire since Managing Director, Howard Tribick, is the current runner-up of the fierceley contested NIBE Installer of the Year Award. Only the best is good enough for the project as innovative and energy efficient as the RHS Bramall Learning Centre. |
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