Care UK has selected a Remeha Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system as the most efficient and economical solution to meet the heating and hot water requirements at its BREEAM-accredited Chester care home.
Luxury and quality care are the watchwords at Deewater Grange, which opened in February 2020 to provide an extensive range of care services for up to 58 older residents. The hotel-style surroundings include a café, hair salon and cinema, while each of the bedrooms boasts its own en-suite wet room.
As with all care homes, the property has high, constant demand for heating and hot water. So, early in the design process, it was essential to select the most appropriate equipment that would comply with Part L of Building Regulations, satisfy the heat provision, and achieve excellent energy performance for lower running costs.
M&E contractors GasTech Limited were appointed to carry out the design and build. They recommended installing a Remeha R-Gen SenerTec Dachs Gen 2 5.5 CHP to meet these requirements. Three Remeha Quinta Ace 115 wall hung condensing boilers were selected to work alongside the CHP to meet peak heat demand.
CHP produces useful heat and electricity at the point of use in a single, highly efficient process. Rather than rejecting ‘waste’ heat to atmosphere like traditional power stations, CHP captures it to produce useful thermal energy. This can be re-used for high grade heating and to pre-heat cold water for domestic hot water production. In this way, it is able to meet a building’s heat demand more efficiently, reducing total primary energy consumption typically by around 30% compared with conventional methods.
“We’ve installed many Remeha CHP systems over the years and find that this technology brings the greatest benefits in terms of reduced energy requirements in sites with year-round heat demand,” said Liam Stott, Project Manager at GasTech.
The modular CHP unit selected, which provides a thermal output of up to 14.7kW and an electrical output of 5.5kWe, is engineered to match demand accurately. The unit, which supplies heat into the main low pressure hot water return, is controlled according to the heat demand, while the internal microprocessor controller tracks the electrical output to match the thermal output.
Once the plant had been craned into the basement plant room, the installation went smoothly, as Liam confirmed. “The CHP was easy to position and we installed the boilers using the manufacturer cascade kit with a low loss header,” he said. “This approach hugely simplified installation and saved us a lot of time.”
Commissioning and set up of the CHP was carried out by the Remeha CHP technical team.
So how is the CHP system performing now?
“The CHP is ticking over nicely, operating non-stop, 24 hours a day,” said Jordan Carrington, Maintenance Manager at Deewater Grange.
“At this time of year, the heating is constantly on and hot water demand is also high,” he continued. “But the CHP is supplying all the heat and doing all the work, which will reduce our carbon footprint and energy costs.”
CHP’s ability to generate on-site electricity at lower gas prices further boosts energy efficiency at the care home – with gas prices currently at around a quarter the price of electricity.
Like all technologies, CHP requires regular maintenance to ensure optimum performance. To support this, a remote CHP monitoring service has been set up at Deewater Grange. This enables any faults to be corrected and reset remotely, reducing downtime, inconvenience and unnecessary costs.
“Having remote access is extremely useful for me at weekends so that I can monitor temperatures or reset the unit remotely if necessary,” confirmed Jordan.
“But equally it means that the Remeha CHP team can dial in and offer advice or correct any faults, often without the need to visit site. They are extremely knowledgeable about CHP technology and provide excellent support. It’s reassuring to know that there’s always someone at the end of the phone to help answer any of my queries!
“We’re really impressed with our CHP system and the service we’ve received.”
The Remeha R-Gen CHP range spans 5.5kWe to 50kWe.
Remeha is part of Baxi Heating. For more information on the full Remeha R-Gen CHP range, visit our website.