London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport is the busiest airport in both the UK and Europe, handling over 80 million passengers per year. Find out how we reconfigured an existing heat network at terminal 2, and created a new one for terminal 5, all whilst over 1,000 flights per day take off or land.
The transformation of the 50-year-old Heathrow terminal 2 was one of the most exciting projects in the UK, with construction giant Laing O’Rourke signing an £800 million agreement to deliver the project which would be built with sustainability at the heart of its design and construction.
The existing high-temperature hot water district heating mains ran under a proposed new multi-storey car park making it necessary for the pipework to be reconfigured.
The 300m reconfiguration would be made more difficult due to tight timescales and the need for the airport to maintain 24/7 access, which would see our engineers scheduled to work through the night to deliver the project.
With up to 6,000 people on site and 140 separate businesses involved in the project, it was essential for them to find a district heating contractor with a strong track record of working on large developments, outstanding communication and strong relationship building skills to ensure they could work alongside multiple utility companies, developers and sub-contractors effectively.
This network was different to a normal buried pipe scheme, with the client opting for a design involving chambers, which allowed access for maintenance. This meant that pipework had to be hand-manoeuvred into position.
We worked closely with the clients and consultants to design and install the heat network, specifying a custom-made, highly insulated Isoplus HT1 pre-insulated pipe system. This has an additional layer of mineral wool insulation which allows it to operate at temperatures of up to 210 degrees, making it ideal for high temperature hot water and steam systems and reduces the overall heat losses. We also used a specialist high performing joint system to further reduce heat loss.
The mains were moved during August and September when BAA, which owns Heathrow, shuts down its heating.
We had just nine weeks to complete the project before BAA turned the heating back on. We designed an alternative route around the proposed multi-storey car park as our in-house expertise allowed us to design and specify the ideal solution, and to allocate an installation team who could deliver the project on time and on budget.
Parts of the installation had to go under the main runway road, which could only be done late at night and in very small sections to ensure that it was still operational.
Key benefits
