Background

Canary Wharf is the major business district of modern London and is home to the headquarters of numerous major European and global financial players. Most buildings in Canary Wharf were built in mid 90s: this means that at present plants are old and inefficient and need to be renovated.

In particular, we have been involved in the renovation of two major buildings, at North Colonnade and at South Colonnade.

For these refurbishment works, the property, via a rigorous consultancy process, chose Geoclima technology and service in partnership with Cool-Therm.

Purposes

The purpose of the entire project, which is developed in different phases, is to replace existing and ageing plants with new efficient systems.

The project required around 15 MW of total capacity and the plants had to provide great benefits and meet specific requirements, in order to improve performance and results: more efficiency, greater capacity, less energy consumption, lower noise.

Project

To meet end user’s specific requirements and to provide 15 MW in two buildings, Geoclima designed and developed chillers, heat pumps and AHUs together with Clima Tech. Every unit is designed to provide the best solution for the type of application they are going to be installed. Every aspect of the single project has been discussed together with partner Cool-Therm and with contractors and consultants involved, in order to provide the solution that best suits end user’s needs.

North Colonnade

This building has over 11MW of cooling, of which 9MW has and will be supplied by Geoclima units.

The first phase of the project concerned the supply of six Clima Tech air handling units connected to six water-to-air heat pumps and dx heating and cooling, for a total heating capacity of 2.34 MW and total cooling capacity of 2.12 MW. This equipment pre conditions all the fresh air for the building.

The system is designed to provide high performance and, at the same time, to be energy efficient and cut energy costs and carbon emissions. To maximise efficiency, the equipment exploits the energy from condensing water from the cooling system and uses it to provide heating to the building.

This AHUs – heat pumps system is providing great benefits in terms of efficiency and savings. Energy costs have been reduced by around 250000 £ per year and capacity has been increased at the same time by 25%.

The second phase concerns the supply of 10 Turbomiser units to replace obsolete air cooled and large scale machines. Units together are designed to provide more than 7 MW cooling capacity.

Four 665 kW and one 1250 kW are already installed and operational. Other five 665 kW Turbomiser units are going to be installed during the next months.

In addition, the new plant is required to provide greater performance and, at the same time, to occupy the same footprint as the previous system, meeting specific requirements in terms of size due to space restrictions on site.

Watch here video of units being positioned at Canary Wharf, published by Spikesfotos: https://www.facebook.com/MySpikesfotos/videos/979806972107457/

10 South Colonnade

For the building at South Colonnade Geoclima provides Clima Tech air handling units combined with six Geoclima air and water source reversible heat pumps.

This system is designed to provide a total of 4 MW of cooling and 3 MW of heating capacity, the various items of Geoclima plant are integrated on a common infrastructure system and performs at all extremes of the UK’s ambient conditions.

As every single unit produced by Geoclima, these units have been tested by Geoclima engineers. It was a challenge test as we had to reach both high ambient temperature – around 35 °C – and very low temperature, down to -4 °C. Read here description of the testing operation for this special project: https://www.geoclima.com/geoclima-cooling-and-heating/

For the same plant we have also provided three air cooled Turbomiser units of 1250 kW cooling capacity each.

Units have been installed on the roof of the building within a special technical compartment designed to enable necessary airflow and, at the same time, to hide machines from eye and weather. To this end, units had to meet specific requirements in terms of size and volume.

Watch here video of units being positioned at Canary Wharf, published by Spikesfotos: https://www.facebook.com/MySpikesfotos/videos/1184491048305714/

Results

First phase of the project at North Colonnade is very energy efficient and is bringing remarkable savings to the building, around 250000 £ per year, with capacity increased by 25%. This project has been awarded with H&V News Award, Architects Journal Retrofit Award and National ACR & Heat Pumps Awards.

The project for buildings renewing at Canary Wharf District started with first delivery in 2015 and is expected to be completed within 2018.

With all units installed and fully operational at both North Colonnade and at South Colonnade, maximum performance and efficiency will be reached.