Somers Town - Heat Network Operation & Maintenance

Each plant room is visited on a weekly basis which allows our experienced engineers to complete visual and audial checks of all the equipment. These checks involve looking for leaks or corrosions, along with performing manual meter reads and data collection to monitor the operation of the equipment. System pressure checks are also completed which ensures all residents are receiving a strong supply of heat and hot water.

Servicing of the equipment is completed by manufacturers and specialist subcontractors, and is overseen by our engineers. These services take place at various times in the plant equipments’ life, for example, the gas boilers and district heating pumps are serviced annually, whereas the gas and fire alarms are serviced twice a year.

Planned energy shut downs only occur during select maintenance activities such as gas and fire alarm tests which only occur every 6 months. We keep disruption to residents at a minimum by only cutting off supply momentarily for up to 5 minutes.

The only other time there is a planned system shut down is once a year to empty the strainer which captures any debris from the water system to prevent it travelling around the scheme. As this can take a few hours to complete, we ensure the client is made aware of the activity in good time to inform the residents. We plan to complete the task during the working day when less people will be at home to reduce the disruption to the residents.

We have specific Key Performance Indicators (KPI) which have been laid out in our service agreement regarding the system efficiencies. Some of these KPIs include providing 24/7 heat and hot water, an overall system efficiency of over 79.8%, and individual boiler efficiencies of above 80%. The results of these KPIs are all detailed in a monthly report that is supplied to the council which calculates the system efficiencies and can be used to compare previous months to identify system optimisation opportunities.