Let’s Talk Heat Network Solutions – Tony Falconar

BPS specialises in designing and manufacturing prefabricated heating systems. These provide high quality, efficient purpose-designed solutions that can be used to deliver heating and hot water within commercial buildings as well as in heat network or district heating schemes. 

The solutions typically bring together products from Baxi’s established brands such as Remeha, Heatrae Sadia and Andrews Water Heaters as well as resources from recently acquired companies like Fortes Energy Systems and BDR Thermea Group’s wider manufacturing facilities in Europe. The solutions are assembled within enclosures that can be roof-mounted, floor-mounted or placed anywhere in a building.

Benefits of using prefabricated solutions

Offsite fabricated solutions deliver highly efficient heating and hot water provision with minimal disruption, significant time savings and enhanced quality assurance.

A major advantage of offsite fabricated solutions is that they can be purpose-designed. The process brings key project stakeholders together at the outset to identify and address all design requirements and any limitations. Revisions to the design can be made collectively to accommodate any future plans. This supports best practice not just at the design and installation stage but through to operation and maintenance, ensuring optimal performance throughout the lifetime of the assets. 

Each individual prefabricated module is typically designed using BIM tools and 3D computer-aided design (CAD) modelling. Early visibility enables stakeholders to collaborate on the system design and fully evaluate the functionality before the build begins under quality-controlled factory conditions with end-of-line testing. In this way, onsite snags are avoided.

Once the design has been agreed and the module built, it is delivered ready for rapid connection and commissioning.

What is the role of BPS in Baxi’s heat network solutions?

Heat networks are one of the vital components of the UK’s net zero roadmap, with the government targeting 20% of heat from heat networks by 2050, up from less than 3% today. 

Baxi provides a complete end-to-end range of products and services to provide a single point of contact for customers involved in heat network projects. From carrying out initial feasibility and design studies to supplying prefabricated centralised energy centres, thermal substations and HIUs and driving efficient system maintenance and system optimisation, Baxi offers total customer support at every stage. 

The shift towards heat networks will drive the rise in demand for large scale plant rooms. Where a heat network supplies energy to a residential development, installing pre-assembled or prefabricated utility cupboards (PUCs) in each individual property is also becoming commonplace. The cupboards come fitted with a full suite of HVAC and electrical components, including HIUs. With the anticipated arrival of zoning, many buildings within a designated heat network zone will require connections to the new heat network once it is up and running using building interfaces such as thermal substations and/or heat interface units. 

BPS has years of experience designing and manufacturing packaged plant rooms and skid-mounted equipment for centralised energy centres, as well as prefabricated utility cupboards for use in individual dwellings within the property. We also provide bespoke, modular or batch produced thermal substations to replace the plant previously serving the building. This specialism is central to Baxi’s heat network proposition and part of what makes Baxi uniquely skilled to support the goal of decarbonisation through heat networks.