ASHRAE UK Midlands section is hosting an open seminar event on 14 June at Birmingham University, in association with the IOR, CIBSE West Midlands, BRSA and the BEI.
Dr Andy Pearson, ASHRAE Fellow and group managing director of Star Refrigeration, will present a paper on ‘Low Carbon District Heating: Centralised Heat Pump Systems’
There has been a rapid and remarkable increase in discussion of industrial-sized heat pump systems for district heating in the UK over the last three years. Heat networks are not a new idea but they have traditionally been seen as a very ‘un-British’ way of delivering domestic heating. The realisation that our carbon reduction targets cannot be met without some drastic changes to the way we live our lives has changed all that. Centralised heat pump systems, drawing heat from rivers and lakes and transferring it to a distribution network for delivery to homes, offices, hospitals, universities and retail, are now proven in many other European and North American cities and are well suited to the UK climate. DECC have completed a heat mapping exercise showing all the major sources of heat and correlating them to major demand centres.
There have been significant technical challenges to overcome along the way. Using one installation as a case study example, Dr Pearson will describe the concept, the difficulties faced and the ways in which they were overcome. The case study, in Drammen, Norway was one of the projects named by ASHRAE in their citation for Dr Pearson’s award of the ASHRAE Fellowship at the 2016 Winter meeting in Orlando this year.
Dr Pearson is also a Fellow of the Institute of Refrigeration, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He has spoken at conferences around the world, including the IIR Congresses in The Hague, Sydney, Washington DC, Beijing and Prague and at seminars in The United States, Australia and South Africa. He is a regular contributor to industry journals and magazines.
The seminar takes place from 18.15-19.45 on 14 June in the Mechanical & Civil Engineering Building (Room McE-G26) at Birmingham University’s Edgbaston Campus.
Admission to the open seminar is free. To book a place, visit https://goo.gl/16QPS5 or email ashrae.ukml@gmail.com