SOUTHAMPTON's new Park View apartment complex is the first new residential project in the city to be connected to a geothermal energy system.
Developer Barratt Homes, who built the complex on the site of the city's once-famous Polygon Hotel, draws its heating and hot water from the geothermal district energy scheme at WestQuay.
It called in Oventrop, the Basingstoke logistical building services company, to supply special radiator valves for the system in the apartments.
As well as an economical heating system, each apartment has its own water-to-water heat exchanger for domestic hot water. The company says that such are the temperatures into the exchanger that when a hot tap is turned on, instant hot water is available, and as residents only pay for what they use, domestic hot water costs are substantially less than for a conventional gas boiler and hot water storage system. With no gas boilers in the apartments, they estimate the development makes a significant environmental contribution by saving 250 tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
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