Loughton Methodist Church was previously heated with 30 year old natural gas fired boilers. As these boilers were coming towards the end of their useful life, the church looked into the possibility of becoming carbon neutral to reduce their impact on the environment. It soon became clear that if the church were to buy its electricity from a renewable source and then install a ground source heat pump, the carbon footprint could be reduced to virtually nothing. With this in mind, the church contacted isoenergy to see what heat pump system would be feasible.
Isoenergy conducted a review of the heating requirements at the church and specified a 100kW ground source heat pump to provide 100% of the spatial heating for the church.
Energy is collected by eight 160 meter boreholes in the car parking area. Boreholes were the only feasible option as there was insufficient space for a horizontal collector array due to the urban location of the church.
The heat pump itself is an inverter-driven, modulating output compressor, heat pump which allows a range of different power outputs between 25kW and 100kW depending on the building’s needs at the time as determined by the outside temperature. The colder it is outside, the more heat the heat pump releases into the building. An additional benefit is that no heating buffer tank is required for this system.
The system at Loughton Methodist Church recently came ‘Highly Commended’ at the London Energy Efficiency and Healthy Homes awards as the best installation in the region.
