Colt installs a Ground Source Heat Pump System at Meerpaal Business Park, Houten, Holland                                                                                              
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                                                 View article in Building Services & Environmental Engineer Magazine, Oct 2007 (2.1 MB)

Colt has broken new ground by installing a Caloris system connected to a Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system at Houten in the centre of Holland.

Houten is world famous for its urban design and green credentials. Its council is strongly promoting ground source heat pump systems, and all developments must incorporate GSHPs.

Accordingly all buildings on the Meerpaal Business Park have been equipped with a ground source heat pump system consisting of boreholes and a central heat pump. This central infrastructure has made it very suitable and cost efficient to install a Caloris local heat pump system.

Cold and warm long term energy storage in the ground

GSHP systems are one of the most energy-efficient ways of heating and cooling buildings, achieving a Coefficient of Performance (COP) of three or higher. Since Caloris achieves a maximum COP of seven, the combined technologies are an extremely energy efficient partnership.

A borehole ring main system has been extended across the Business Park to connect all buildings together. At regular intervals two 100m deep boreholes have been dug to pump up and inject ground water, one for storage of cooler water and one for storage of warmer water.

The borehole system is connected to a series of Caloris heat pumps via a heat exchanger. The cooler water can be used for cooling in summer, and equally the warmer water for heating in winter. Just as the GSHP system utilises the heat of the earth, the Caloris system uses the building's thermal mass as an additional energy store, since pipes are laid into the building's concrete structure.

In this way the client has achieved significant energy savings and CO2 emissions reduction.

Yet further savings

The configuration of Caloris units on this project offers even greater savings compared to a conventional Caloris installation (where a Caloris indoor unit is connected to a water loop and external heat pump), since it ensures that hardly any heat injection is required.

Within a year, Colt received an order to supply an additional Caloris system for a second building at this site, also ground sourced, which indicates a high level of satisfaction with the system.

In total 57 Caloris units have been supplied to Meerpal Business Park. These provide decentralised control, allowing occupants to regulate the temperatures of the individual rooms, using energy that is virtually free.

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