As the power-house of any low or zero carbon heating/hot water system, the boiler is the make or break system component, and the latest generation of condensing or biomass boilers ensure that buildings have the greatest possible chance of delivering energy and cost savings.

Whilst these technologies are inherently energy efficient, to harness the full potential, it is also critically important to consider system design temperatures, control philosophy, hydraulic system design and system integration.

Jeff House, Applications Manager for Baxi Commercial Division, considers the range of measures that need to be taken into account by designers and installers when consideration is being given to the inclusion of solar thermal solutions in heating systems.

With the anticipated 15% increase on fuel prices over the next year, more and more pressure is being put on builders, architects and developers to build sustainable and energy efficient buildings. Peter Gammon, Technical Product Manager at MHS Boilers, takes a closer look at how installers and specifiers can do more to support a low carbon UK.

We are pleased to announce that BSEE and Baxi Commercial Division are once again collaborating to offer one lucky reader the chance to help out their local community by entering the 2012 Baxi Community Challenge. The winner will receive a new ‘commercial- sized’ gas-fired water heater or boiler from Baxi Commercial Division, and could be any one of a diverse number of organisations from a scout/guide hut, a recreation field pavilion, a band hut, a youngsters’ football changing facility, a children’s arts and crafts recycling centre, a village museum, club halls and many more.

St George’s Hospital in Tooting is saving £45,000 per year by upgrading the heating and hot water systems in one of its plant rooms to Spirax EasiHeat plate heat exchanger packages.

Five EasiHeat systems now serve the Lanesborough wing of the 1,000 bed hospital. Three provide heating and two deliver domestic hot water in a duty/standby arrangement.

Rehau’s RAUTHERMEX pre-insulated PE-Xa polymer pipework is helping to deliver a new energy efficient district heating scheme for 37 properties owned by the University of Stirling and managed by Link Group Ltd in Bridge of Allan, Scotland.

The pipework has been installed to provide the district heating main to each of the refurbished properties from a new centralised biomass boiler installed by Angus Biofuels of Forfar.

On a spectacular headland overlooking the Isle of Wight’s famous lighthouse, the Needles Old Battery has been at the forefront of technological development for nearly 150 years. So when it came to installing a new heating system to meet 21st century energy efficiency requirements, the National Trust, which owns the site, opted for an air source heat pump from Dimplex.

With renewable technologies increasing in stature across the UK, much can be said about the significance of carbon reductions and improved efficiencies. Stefan Gautsch, Design Engineer for Buderus, explains how, despite this trend, condensing boilers still have a part to play in supporting renewables as part of an integrated central heating system.

As a nation we have committed to stringent, and legally binding, carbon emission reduction targets through the Climate Change Act 2008. These require an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (against a 1990 benchmark figure) with intermediate targets addressed through regular Carbon Budgets.

As the tough economic times continue, it might be tempting for specifiers to opt for relatively unknown, cheaper brands to keep costs down and to make a higher margin. Here Jon Cockburn, Head of Marketing at Heatrae Sadia, explains that where large and small unvented water heating is concerned, this is false economy.

Welcome to the final list of qualifiers for the Baxi Commercial Division Community Challenge. The judging panel received a rush of last minute entries that made the process of choosing the final shortlisted qualifier all the more difficult. After due consideration, three applicants stood out above the rest and the decision was made to include all of them in our final shortlist, making a total of five. Here are details of the final three.

With the Renewable Heat

Incentive (RHI) on the horizon and other C02 saving initiatives, such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) encouraging businesses and private investors to seek more fuel efficient heating solutions, the market for biomass boilers looks set to grow considerably in the next five years.

Whilst biomass technologies are still relatively new to the UK in comparison to Europe, the role biomass boilers have to play in preparing for a future with reduced fossil fuel supplies is an increasingly important one. In the past, it has perhaps been all too easy to take advantage of the rich supplies of coal, oil and gas we have access to in this country.

It is not so long ago that ISO9001 was the sign of a market leading, reputable manufacturer. Certainly, when dealing business to business, it was not uncommon to get the question: “Is your company ISO approved?” Nowadays, a quality assurance system, such as ISO, is a pre-requisite and perhaps a minimum requirement for doing business.

Do you know of a worthy cause looking for some help? Maybe it’s your local village hall which needs a new water heater or the scout hut which is in need of a new boiler. If you know of any organisation that fits this category then write to us today because BSEE has teamed up with Baxi Commercial Division to offer one lucky reader the chance to help out their local community in the Baxi Community Challenge.

With all eyes focused on carbon emissions it’s important not to lose sight of the need to combine carbon reduction with energy efficiency. Kevin Stones, Engineering and Service Director with Hoval, explains how the two can be brought together, with particular reference to heat sources.

Heating technology is adapting to match environmental aspirations and the pressing need to deliver real running cost savings as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, says Ron Barker, Group Product Manager at Ideal Commercial Heating.

This year is set to be a pivotal year for the commercial heating sector as end users react to an exciting cocktail of market drivers. They are clinging to their environmental aspirations, but are also juggling with tighter budgets and onerous legislative requirements. So, they want solutions that are quick and cost-effective as well as energy saving.

There are, and always have been, a wide variety of requirements to consider when selecting a boiler model for commercial applications. A number of factors such as building land, boiler output, efficiency, modulation range and size must all be considered and matched appropriately to each project. As a result, high efficiency commercial boilers are emerging on the market that have smaller footprints than ever before for the outputs available.

Research commissioned by Purmo and conducted by the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), has shown that radiators are still one of the most energy efficient heat emitters available, even at lower system temperatures.

The study looked at both new build and refurbished properties, concluding that in both circumstances, radiators start to perform efficiently as soon as the temperature of the water in the system exceeds the temperature in the space to be warmed, even when using temperatures much lower than in traditional heating systems. At lower temperatures, the research concluded that radiators are highly efficient and use far less energy.

As part of a continuous improvement programme at its off-site decontamination units serving its hospitals, Nuffield Health has recently installed Fulton skid-mounted steam boiler packages with remote monitoring capabilities.

Each of the six sites contains a skid-mounted package consisting of three 60J boiler plus ancillaries and all eighteen boilers are being remotely monitored by a Fulton-designed telemetry system, which complies with the current PGS2 standard.

Dalkia is providing an energy efficient, cost and carbon saving approach to energy generation at two university campuses. Using Combined Heat and Power (CHP), Dalkia is helping Loughborough and Sussex universities meet their energy generation needs.

Hot water is one of those things that we all take for granted and is just as important in the workplace (hotels, restaurants, sports and leisure facilities, schools, hospitals, offices and factories) as it is within the home.

The term Domestic Hot Water (DHW) means any hot water used for normal hygiene uses and is sometimes referred to as Sanitary Hot Water (SHW). Nonetheless, it’s a big mistake to think that DHW is simply a matter of using existing technology and practices just because it’s a given in daily life. In fact the design of both system and equipment is subject to continuous improvement and massive investment by the industry.

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) received mixed reviews when it was introduced by the former Labour Government, but it was generally seen as a step in the right direction by the heating industry. However, with public spending cuts becoming a regular theme under the new coalition, who’s to say if it will live up to its potential or even get off the ground?

The RHI was designed to provide financial support that encourages individuals, communities and businesses to switch from using fossil fuel for heating, to renewables. The scheme was devised by the former Government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change, so it remains to be seen if we will get what we were promised with the new coalition. It is clear we need an initiative like this to stand any chance of meeting our 2020 renewables targets, but it must be fit for purpose.

Yan Evans, Technical Director of Baxi Commercial Division, outlines the application of direct-fired water heaters to improve efficiency and reduce the carbon emissions of hot water systems in existing buildings.

With the Coalition Government claiming that 2010 onwards will be ‘a new decade of transformation’ in terms of a low carbon future, how we heat our buildings remains an ongoing debate. Kevin Tolson, Marketing Director of Redring, puts forward the case for electric heating and outlines how it provides not just a sustainable but also an affordable solution for the future.

The introduction of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme earlier this year has made it even more important for organisations to look at their carbon emissions and find ways to reduce them. In addition to complying with the legislation, businesses will also find they save money by becoming more energy efficient.

As part of its strategy for meeting challenging carbon emissions targets, York City Council is making use of biomass boilers and solar heating panels from Hoval. Recent projects include the Green Apple Award-winning Danesgate Skills Centre, Acomb Library and York High School. The latter project will use what is believed to be UK’s largest array of solar thermal panels.

In a bid to significantly increase its energy efficiency, Flegg High School in Martham, Norfolk, built in the 1960s, has undergone some major changes over the last few years.

In 2009, the 20+ year old Broag-Remeha oil boilers in the main boiler house were replaced with a 550kW Remeha- Gilles Biomass boiler which has made a key contribution, by reducing the school’s CO2 emissions by an estimated 177 tonnes per annum and with an estimated annual financial saving of £7,000.

Lancashire based Atlantic Boilers has installed a new boiler-plant including a bio-fuel burner to heat a new workshop and laboratory at the college’s town centre campus.

The installation consists of two R22-500 dual fuel B100 bio-fuel/natural gas lead condensing boilers each rated at 530kW and one NA-R 1160kW natural gas lag high efficiency boiler. The in-house control system ensures that the two R Series boilers take up most of the heating load.

The increasing pressure on building operators to increase their energy efficiency and minimise carbon emissions necessitates a holistic evaluation of every aspect of performance, down to the finest detail. At the same time, there is a tendency to assume that sophisticated control systems will take care of all of this detail –this isn’t necessarily the case and is often missed or not recognised.

In the current economic climate, companies are looking even more closely than usual at all areas of expenditure. Building services are coming under increasing scrutiny, and heating and hot water provision is no exception. Significant savings can be achieved by replacing even 10 year old boilers with new high specification condensing or high efficiency systems, and there are several grants and loans available to businesses looking to upgrade.

There’s no doubt that in recent years sustainability and renewables have become buzzwords in the industry, with energy efficiency and green issues at the top of the political and news agenda.

While condensing technology in commercial gas-fired boilers has probably been developed as far as the laws of physics allow in terms of increased combustion efficiency, oil fired technology in the commercial sector has lagged behind - until now. This is due to the practical difficulties arising from the process of condensing flue gases from burning oil, which is highly corrosive to metal. As most traditional non-condensing oil-fired boilers have heat exchangers constructed from a metal material, guaranteed for life by some leading manufacturers, the application of conventional condensing technology would very quickly adversely affect the operating performance and life of such an appliance.

The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations (GSIUR) 1998 deal with the installation, maintenance and use of gas appliances, fittings and flues in domestic premises and certain commercial premises. However, the HSE and CORGI expressed concerns over non-compliance, following incidents in 2008, and took prompt action to inform developers and contractors, landlords and property owners of the potential dangers from certain types of flues connected to gas-fired central heating installations in some properties.

For commercial property managers, specifying heating systems is largely determined by cost - the cost of the system to purchase and install and its annual running costs. However, with more and more legislation being introduced that is intended to drastically reduce the UK's carbon emissions and the Government's long term plan to make all new non-domestic buildings carbon neutral within the next 10 years, the environmental impact of a heating system has also become increasingly important in the specification process.

The Climate Change Act has made it a legal requirement for the UK to reduce carbon emissions by 80% from the 1990 baseline by 2050. This could rise to 90% if the aviation industry fails to curb its own emissions. It's a tall order, and the most logical place to start is with the biggest consumer - buildings.

There is no question that the UK heating and ventilation sector is going to face some tough technical and engineering challenges over the next few years. Yan Evans, technical director of Andrews Water Heaters and Potterton Commercial, offers some innovative thoughts and methods on how to deliver ultra-low carbon heating and hot water solutions.