ESBE Valves Employed In Full Decarbonisation Of University Of West London College Buildings

A major energy refurbishment project carried out at a University of West London College has achieved dramatic improvements to the energy efficiency of both historic and contemporary buildings, replacing the complex’s gas-fired boilers with a district heating scheme fed by air source heat pumps, where ESBE valves are crucial to the management of the heating and hot water supply.

The year-long upgrade at Ruskin College which completed in March, was led by Norfolk based Finn Geotherm with its engineers installing a cascade of four Carrier 85.9 kW capacity ASHPs located in a central plant room, laying underground thermal mains around the site and also fitting new radiators along with large capacity DHW storage tanks in each of the teaching and accommodation buildings. Finn Geotherm also oversaw significant improvements to the properties’ heat loss profiles with new roof insulation being installed while blown Thermabeads replaced existing cavity wall insulation.

Crucial to the success of the changeover, however, has been the ability of Finn Geotherm’s designs to manage the variation in supply temperature required for the individual heating and hot water circuits within the four buildings as Technical Director, David Alston explained. He said: “While East Anglia is our home territory we cover all the south of England doing a lot of commercial work as well as large public sector contracts such as at Ruskin College, which has been carried out under the Government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme – with all the scrutiny and oversight that involves – as well as there being complex challenges to the installation."  

"We had to opt for high-temperature heat pumps, capable of delivering 70+ degrees C to raise the temperature of the hot water tanks to 60 degrees (for Legionella compliance), but the radiators were designed to run at a flow temperature of 50⁰ C. It would be really inefficient to run the heat pumps continuously at 70⁰ C so there is a switchover process managed by the BMS and involves the ESBE valves.”

“Therefore, when there is a heating demand a signal goes back to the district heating scheme to raise the mains temperature – effectively an S-plan system for the hot water. The ESBE MBA121 valve allows us to close off the heating when we’re in hot water mode – while we’re also using the ESBE VRG131 3-port valve with ARA 659 proportional controller to regulate the temperature to the radiator circuit, with weather compensation.”

Reflecting on the success of the project overall, David added: “I have a long-standing relationship with ESBE and we’ve fitted thousands of their valves in different projects over the years.  We do so because of their build quality and reliability while we were particularly keen on using the ‘rotary shoe principle’. This district heating system has a design SCOP* of 3.83 and has run reliably over the whole of the winter with only positive feedback from the college.”

The MD for ESBE, Darren Myers reflected: “Finn Geotherm is a valued customer for us, carrying out a lot of high profile and high-quality projects, while David has been over to our manufacturing and research site in Sweden to see the development work we are doing. It is very valuable to have his feedback to help refine new products before we bring them to market.” 

All of the ESBE valves were supplied through Secon, which is one of Finn Geotherm’s regular supplier of hydronics components. Specifiers and heating engineers seeking further information on ESBE’s product range and services can call on the support of ESBE’s technical advisory service - or go online to view the manufacturer’s helpful and instructional videos.  https://esbe.eu/uk