Wye Valley NHS Trust has turned on a new ground source heat pump in order to keep two of the buildings on their County Hospital site warm without use of fossil fuels.
The move comes as part of the first phase of the trust’s programme to reduce carbon emissions following a £4.9 million government-funded works programme which saw 47 boreholes drilled to install the ground source heat pump.
The pump extracts what little heat there is in the ground and a heat exchanger uses it to warm up the water circulating in the heating system.
In addition, pipes have been lagged, a layer of solar panels has been installed on the main hospital building’s roof, and lights have been converted to LED lights.
The trust has also made a successful bid for £21 million of government cash and plans to convert the entire hospital site to be free of fossil fuels. As part of this, they will install more ground source heat pumps in a move expected to reduce the amount of carbon produced to heat the hospital by approximately 97 percent.
Alan Dawson, Strategy and Planning Officer, said: “It’s been a major programme to get to this point as each of the 47 boreholes are 200m (650ft) deep, but it’s been worth it.
“Thanks to the work which has already been carried out, we have reduced our carbon footprint by around 600 tonnes a year (around 15 percent) – saving us around £90k in fuel bills.”
He added that once the programme has been extended across the entire hospital site, the trust estimates that they will be saving around 3,715 tonnes of carbon a year, which will make it “one of the greenest trusts in the UK”.
A video on the first phase of the project can be found below.
