Heating and Ventilating

Ealing council's decision to use Dimplex ground source heat pump at a new school has produced good results, prompting the council to install heatpumps at three more schools in the area.
Grange Primary School in Ealing has undergone a £7 million rebuild programme and the heat pump technology installed now provides 40kW of energy efficient, low carbon heat for the school.

EarthEnergy, the Dimplex heat pump installer partner carried out the work which included the drilling of 15 boreholes in an area which is now part of the playground.

A Dimplex SI 40 TEH high temperature ground source heat pump was installed which provides variable water flow temperatures up to 70 degrees celcius.

Following the success at Grange Primary, EarthEnergy was awarded contracts to install Dimplex heat pumps for Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls in Acton and Northolt's Mandeville School. A fourth Ealing school is at the planning stage for redevelopment and will also include Dimplex ground source heat pumps.

The installation of the heat pumps means the building projects have met the local authority’s 10% renewable energy goal under the Merton Rule.

Kwasi Ofori-Amoako, Ealing Council’s capital programme manager, school services, said: “We looked at various options to achieve the 10% renewable energy requirements including solar and biomass but the Dimplex ground source heat pumps were the easiest and most cost effective way for us to meet the Merton Rule specification'.

He added: “Grange Primary was the first school we used ground source heat pumps in and it’s quickly become apparent that this is the cheapest and easiest way of achieving renewable energy requirements.”