Vital Energi delivered a Combined Heat and Power solution to the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace which is regarded as one of the most efficient schemes in the UK achieving a 93% efficiency level.
Vital Energi’s innovative heating system is set to reduce up to £400,000 a year off the fuel bills of London’s iconic National Sports Centre whilst cutting its CO2 emissions by 50%.* Vital Energi was selected to design, supply and install a record-breaking low carbon solution at the National Sports Centre (NSC), as part a £13million refurbishment by the London Development Agency (LDA).
The £1,000,000.00 upgrade of the system was funded by the LDA who have a 125 year lease for owning and managing the National Sports Centre. The LDA’s regeneration of the NSC was a major part of its Master Plan for Crystal Park, which aimed to ensure that the historic park and NSC had a “vibrant and sustainable future”. Following the news that the LDA was to be disbanded, ensuring a successful succession of the lease of the NSC became a high priority to the LDA, who also wanted to utilise its remaining financial grants.
As energy costs were a significant proportion of the overall costs of running the NSC the LDA investigated ways of ensuring the operational costs of running the centre could be controlled and that the equipment was reliable and efficient. This investigation revealed that there was massive potential for improvement on performance of the existing system, despite it being refurbished only two years ago. Upgrading the system on an accelerated programme was also a priority as the NSC will be a training facility for the 2012 Olympics.
The LDA appointed Cynergin, an independent consultancy, to assist with procuring the project and vetting tender proposals. Following a competitive tender process Vital Energi was appointed the contract, as its high level of skills and experience allowed it to offer the greatest level of saving to the client. Vital Energi’s design expertise, coupled with their unique 25 years experience of decentralised energy solutions enabled them to significantly improve on the LDAs initial programme, whilst also providing an energy solution with a payback of a remarkable 3.5 years.
Working within very tight timescales, Vital Energi developed a highly efficient Combined Heat and Power (CHP) engine and combined it with a number of other energy efficient technologies, resulting in the record-breaking performance of the system. At the centre of Vital Energi’s turnkey solution is a new 1000kW CHP which produces heat and electricity simultaneously from the same natural gas fuel source. The CHP system functions at a groundbreaking 93% efficiency which is a significant improvement on the average 70-80% efficiency rate of CHP units - making this one of, if not the most efficient CHP unit in the UK.
