energy & environment
Prefect Controls in new 11-storey Cardiff student block
T
2 ARCHITECTS was employed by the developer
Ethos Property to design a scheme to convert a former 6th form college in the
heart of Cardiff into an 11-storey, 123 student room facility, with social and study spaces, a gym, a cinema room and gaming areas. McCarthy Bainbridge was the electrical and mechanical consultant engineer for the project and among the many recommendations it made, it chose PrefectIrus to control hot water and room temperature control. Mark Pragnell, a McCarthy Bainbridge
director, explained: “We had known about Prefect Controls for some time, but used them for the first-time last year on this project.” MBL wanted a control system that could
provide many of the features of a building energy management system but at a fraction of the cost. Pragnall said: “Their product served the exact purpose that we
were looking for and it was doing things that other systems aren’t providing. “We put the proposal forward to Ethos,
and they bought the system direct from Prefect. We recommended to them that it would be best practice to have Prefect install the system and it worked well, Prefect policed the process and only when they were satisfied did they hand the job back to us. They installed it, they commissioned it and then they warrantied it. They also provide the annual cover on the system.” A further key consideration in this retro-fit
project was how quickly and easily the system could be installed. “The building was in operation, so we couldn’t just tear down walls and ceilings. By using the existing electrical wiring, we avoided having to run data cables throughout the building. This speeded up the install and kept disruption right down,” said Pragnell. Energy saving was the primary objective
but the system also incorporates Prefect’s upgraded CU3 control unit with its Lux, humidity and decibel sensors. These alert
maintenance managers to failing lighting and ventilation products and excessive noise over prolonged periods. The new controller also has integrated window-open detection which ‘learns’ how long a room takes to reach the set temperature and the dissipation rates. If the temperature drops suddenly the only explanation is that doors or windows have been opened, as a result the unit displays ‘window open’ and stops heating the room until the window is closed. The City Road development is an electrical
system. However, the next phase that McCarthy Bainbridge is working on is a wet system, said Pragnell. “PrefectIrus works just as well on a wet system. If we had used a BEMS we would have had to start introducing the motorised valves and actuators and all the additional cost that would have brought, whereas, with PrefectIrus it’s just a thermal drive that goes on over the TRV, nothing special is required.”
www.prefectcontrols.com
Advanced pipe technology specified for Higgs Innovation Centre
A
NEW business incubation initiative at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, pioneered by the
Science & Technology Facilities Council, is due to open to businesses shortly. The Higgs Centre for Innovation will be
a ground-breaking new facility, run in partnership with the University of Edinburgh. It will apply business incubation best practice to big data and space technology, enabling start-ups to translate fundamental research into wider commercial impact. Edinburgh based building services consulting engineers, Blackwood Partnership, specified Flexalen pipe work supplied by specialist pre-insulated pipe technology provider Flexenergy, for the project. The Flexalen system comprising
36 highereducationestates
pre-fabricated, pre-insulated welded pipework sections with electro & butt fusion joints offered the opportunity of direct burial of the pipe runs. In total 100 m of 125 mm pipe and 200
metres of 90 mm pipe were installed to convey LPHW Heating Water and Chilled Water from a remote plantroom and a remote combined water chiller/heat pump to the Higgs Mechanical Services Plantroom. The Centre is named in honour of
Professor Peter Higgs, the British scientist and Nobel Prize winner who predicted the existence of the Higgs boson almost 50 years before its discovery.
www.flexenergy.co.uk
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