Acoustic Plant Room for Kincorth District Heating Scheme

This is another acoustic plant room project for Aberdeen Heat and Power and has just been delivered to site, ready to put into action, serving the Kincorth District Heating Scheme. It follows on from another we delivered for the Stoneywood district heating system.

A district heating system uses a central plant to provide heat to a group of buildings. At the centre of this is a power generator and boilers that produce hot water, which is circulated to individual homes or buildings. By housing these within an acoustic plant room, it delivers the power where it’s needed, without noise pollution for the local residents.

There are a number of key advantages to using a centralised acoustic packaged plant room solution like the one we provide.

• You remove the need for a boiler in each building which is safer, makes better use of space in new build and allows central control by the operator
• You can ensure the plant itself is efficient so all of the homes and buildings within the scheme, benefit from greener energy
• Maintenance costs are reduced as there is only one centralised plant to maintain, rather than individual boilers situated in every property.
• There is little to no residual noise for local residents

The acoustic packaged plant room we designed and built for Kincorth is our biggest to date. It’s 10m in length, 4.2m wide and 4m high. It was designed to be the maximum size we can move by road from our factory to the site in Kincorth, a suburb south of Aberdeen.

You can see some images of the unit in construction here:

When complete, the unit was driven north with our transport partner. As you can see, it’s a tall, wide load and needed an escort for the entire route.

A CHP is around 85% efficient when compared to the 35% efficiency achieved by conventional power stations. It simultaneously generates electric power and useable heat, in a single process. It generates electricity locally and captures the waste heat produced to provide space heating and hot water to distribute through the district heating network.

The CHP will be supported by six Vitodens 200-W 150kW gas boilers to provide hot water. These allow all of the boilers to be used as a cascade, giving a total output of 900kW at times of peak demand, or operate individually, and in sequence, when demand is low.

The hot water produced will be stored in a 5,000-litre Volano Termico Buffer tank, to help at peak demand times and reduce the pressure on the boilers. The boilers are the latest commercial condensing boilers that can operate at up to 99% efficiency.

The system has been designed from the outset to be fully expandable, so more can be added as required. It also has an in-built water treatment system to ensure the long-term health of the system.

The finished system will serve well over 100 homes, up to three apartment developments, two schools and a number of other properties. It stretches across over 400m from the centrally located acoustic plant room to the furthest property. It has the potential to go even further and serve more homes and properties. Everyone involved benefits from greener, more efficiently produced heat and power. Our sister company has written some detail about how to decarbonise your business here.

In these times of huge energy uncertainty, everyone involved in the scheme will benefit from the security of supply and a single source supplier.

If you have a project in mind, then please give the Kimpton Acoustic Engineering team a call to discuss.