Westward Housing, Peacock Place

Ground Source Review Peacock Place - Shared Ground Loop Array

Ground Source Review: Peacock Place.

Peacock Place is the third award-winning ground source heat pump retrofit project undertaken by Westward Housing and Kensa Contracting, installed in sheltered accommodation housing vulnerable residents in a block of flats in East Devon.

READ IN FULL AT KENSACONTRACTING.COM

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Ground Source Review: Peacock Place

In February 2015, Kensa Contracting and Westward Housing partnered to deliver the UK’s first shared ground loop array scheme in flats for residents at Croft House in Holsworthy, Devon. Westward Housing were so impressed with the results that they committed to two further ground source heat pump projects with Kensa, one of which is Peacock Place.

Peacock Place provides sheltered accommodation for vulnerable elderly and disabled residents, comprising of 24 one and two bedroom flats plus a guest bedroom linked by a communal corridor and a breakout area. The whole site was originally heated by night store heaters supplied by an economy 7 tariff, which was an inefficient and expensive system to run.

Kensa carried out extensive survey work and heat loss calculations before specifying a shared ground loop array heat network solution. This innovative system architecture, pioneered by Kensa, features an individual ground source heat pump in each flat linked to a communal ground array. The flats at Peacock Place are served in groups of two with a shared single borehole between them, with additional boreholes for the communal corridors, breakout area and guest bedroom respectively.

This communal approach reduced drilling costs and also made the project eligible for the Non Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI: this scheme has now closed – please visit this page to explore other funding), giving Westward Housing the opportunity to receive quarterly payments from the Government for 20 years. It also ensures that each property can use their own preferred energy supplier and pay only for the heat they use, rather than more common communal systems where it becomes necessary to meter for payment which is more complicated for both the landlord and tenant.

Mrs Trezise, resident said:

The heat pump is 100% better than the night stores. There was much less disruption than I expected and the team were really nice. I’m only putting £10 on key meter for whole house now. When it’s cold it only takes 20 minutes to heat the whole house – this was impossible with night store heaters.

READ THE FULL CASE STUDY AT KENSACONTRACTING.COM

Key Facts

  • Kensa Contracting managed scheme
  • Block of x24 one and two bed flats
  • 6kW Kensa Shoebox Twin
  • Shared ground loop array system
  • Displacing electric night storage heaters