HEAT NETWORK RUNNING TO 60°C / 30°C DESIGN
Quayside, Totnes
Quayside, Totnes is a development of 60 high-quality Extra Care apartments for over-55s close to the River Dart in Devon. The development also includes a bistro, cafe, activity areas and a ‘pamper suite’. The Guinness Partnership, who operate around 150 heat networks across the UK, decided that a low temperature network was the best way to maximise customer satisfaction and reduce heating and hot water costs.
Image credit: HousingCare
Some customers are paying as little as £5-a-week for their heat and hot water. This positive feedback shows that Quayside is really leading the way.
Anna Crosby, Sustainability Manager at The Guinness Partnership
Image credit: HousingCare
THE CHALLENGE
Like many housing associations that have taken on the role of energy provider, The Guinness Partnership faced a number of challenges across their portfolio of heat networks, including an inability to monitor performance or spot inefficiencies and faults, which drive up customer heat costs.
At Quayside, Totnes, The Guinness Partnership decided to use our data analytics platform Guru Pinpoint to spot problems early and ensure the network remained at 60°C flow / 30°C return once residents moved in and beyond.
THE SOLUTION
After consulting network design, The Guinness Partnership installed Guru Systems Hubs in each dwelling, block and in the plant room. They then used the five-minute performance data captured to inform the commissioning process as well as ongoing operation and maintenance.
Data from previous schemes allowed The Guinness Partnership to identify the key factors that drive up bills and amend the design process for the Quayside development.
This included reducing pipe sizes and removing unnecessary infrastructure from the network. Together with guidance from heat network engineering consultancy, FairHeat, data from Guru Pinpoint meant that Guinness could carry out acceptance testing on each property to ensure that the network was performing optimally before accepting it from the contractor.
Before handing homes over to customers, Guinness used Guru Pinpoint to identify issues affecting network efficiency, spotting problems with the radiators in communal areas and fan coil units in commercial areas.
Image credit: HousingCare
THE RESULTS
The data delivered by Guru Pinpoint, together with advice from FairHeat, allowed the project team to optimise efficiency and performance of the heat network. Other benefits included:
- Delivering the best performing heat network in The Guinness Partnership’s portfolio
- £102,000 saving on build costs
- £120 saving per year for each resident on heat costs
Quayside, Totnes also won Heat Network of the Year at the 2019 Network Magazine awards.
Three years in, and the network is still performing well. These graphs from Guru Pinpoint show the network at the same time and date, from 2018, 2019 and 2020.