In the first quarter of 2015, Infinitas took part in the North Warwickshire Borough Council’s Heat Networks Delivery Unit (HNDU) project. Our team carried out heat mapping, energy master planning, and feasibility study in the process.

The NWBC area lies to the east of Birmingham with critical towns such as Atherstone, Coleshill, Shustoke and Arley.

Infinitas worked alongside Down to Zero as a part of the consortium. Together, we undertook site surveys of the main areas identified in the mapping and planning stage. The heat mapping and master planning part of the scope of work identified 16 possible schemes. Then, we worked up each proposal to different extents to assess which ones are the best, considering any technical, financial, risk, environmental, economic and social criteria. Each scheme was ranked against these criteria, resulting in 5 projects that would enable competitive heat prices to be offered to residents, tenants and businesses.

Council-owned buildings in Atherstone

One of the top projects our group worked on was several council-owned buildings in Atherstone, including the leisure centre, community hall, library and clinic. To complete the scope of work successfully, we needed to:

• Visit each building and assess for existing heat plant, the proximity to each other and the potential heat network route and energy centre location to link the buildings together. 
• Carry out detailed energy modelling based on the council’s DEC information and fuel bills.
• Derive a combined peak load and annual demand profile from the modelling, allowing the energy centre heat plant and heat network to be sized.

Our consortium divided work between the two teams and carried out this process on each identified area.

400-house development in Hartshill

Another project we took part in was a new build 400-house development in Hartshill. We identified a sizeable water-filled quarry close to the site. Our team confirmed the quarry to have more than sufficient energy to heat the entire development through water source heat pumps and a low-temperature heat network. We confirmed the heat source capacity and the development heat demand through the calculations.

The final design consisted of a 2.6MW water source heat pump generating 4.45GWh of heat per year and a 50-60°C network temperature depending on the time of the year. The consortium also carried out financial modelling, which provided a 20-year internal rate of return (IRR) of 12% with a 3.5-year payback. The modelling resulted in the customer heat price set at 4.8p/kWh, including all operation and maintenance of the network and energy centre.

The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) reviewed the final report and presentations and stated that this was one of the best HNDU studies carried out to date.

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