Heating market gets off the floor

Lacey
A very healthy long-term market for commercial wall-hung boilers — Dave Lacey.

Wall hung commercial boilers will prove more important than ever as the country embarks on the massive building refurbishment programme needed to meet carbon reduction targets and cut operating costs, according to Dave Lacey.

With the increasing focus on renewables, the role of ‘traditional’ heating technologies in delivering sustainable buildings is often overlooked. However, most design professionals will tell you that high-efficiency condensing boilers will have an even more important role to play when the commercial new-build and refurbishment markets get back on their feet.

Being able to hang higher-capacity boilers on the wall has proved to be a major benefit for heating-system designers looking for more flexible solutions, particularly in the refurbishment market. We are now seeing more and more wall-hung 46 and 65 kW models in multiple-boiler systems being specified for refurbishment projects. This means contractors can meet the demands of commercial properties with high-efficiency systems, even in relatively restricted areas. This flexibility means that a far wider range of buildings can be retrofitted with state-of-the-art heating systems and benefit from much lower running costs and reduced carbon emissions.

Many of the very large, often oversized, floor-standing commercial boilers that have been thundering away for years are now being replaced by much smaller wall-hung boilers in modular arrays as end users clamour for more energy-efficient and carbon-friendly solutions. These new configurations are much better at adapting to changing demand by modulating up or down to minimise energy use and extend their operating life.

Renewables and microgeneration technologies, such as combined heat and power and solar thermal, will take an increasingly large share of the market in the coming years, but boilers will still be relied on to provide the lion’s share of commercial heating. They are often the preferred option because they can be retrofitted to an existing system without having to make costly changes or additions to the existing system or rebuild boiler houses. This keeps down capital costs and avoids disruption for the commercial-building operator. However, the challenge is to make the boilers as efficient as possible and, when they are working in tandem with renewables, to get the controls strategy spot on.

Legislation is really picking up a head of steam in this market. Part L2 of the Building Regulations insists on a minimum efficiency of 84% for replacement boiler installations, and that is set to increase when revised regulations come into force later this year. In most cases, only condensing boilers will be able to meet this level of performance.

However, the whole system must achieve this efficiency, and that means the configuration and control strategy of the system are critical. Condensing boilers will only achieve their maximum efficiency in situ if the flow and return temperatures of the system are closely controlled; weather-compensation control is included in many more designs today to keep systems in condensing mode for longer without compromising on comfort.

‘Cascade’ controllers that manage boiler sequencing and ensure optimum starting and stopping to minimise energy use are also being specified for refurbishment projects to deliver significant reductions in running cost.

This whole-system approach will be further emphasised when the European Ecodesign of Energy Using Products (EuP) directive (also scheduled for this autumn, but likely to be delayed until 2011) comes into force. Being able to fit boilers in a sequential, modular array — perhaps even mixing condensing and standard-efficiency systems in some cases — gives designs additional flexibility when trying to achieve these increasingly challenging efficiency targets.

The EuP is proving to be a highly complex and controversial piece of legislation, but it is on the right track by focusing on total system efficiency, which depends on good design and professional commissioning. Wall-hung commercial boilers now have a range of inbuilt features such as onboard diagnostics and flue-gas analysis points to reduce the chances of system failures. Additional features such as low-loss header kits and shunt pumps also allow the building-services contractor to make significant improvements to existing buildings.

Vaillant
More and more wall-hung boilers in multiple-boiler systems are being specified for refurbishment projects.

The recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) is also due out next year. Two proposed measures, in particular, have significant implications for commercial heating: mandatory boiler inspections and the extension of Display Energy Certificates (DECs) into buildings below 1000 m2. DECs are only valid for one year, which means our installations will have to prove themselves every year they are in operation, and operators will now have a legal duty to act on the recommendations made in the energy inspector’s report that accompanies the certificate.

The UK Government chose to go down the voluntary route with heating systems under the original EPBD and opted to only provide energy-efficiency advice. The feeling among Brussels lawmakers is that we now need to go further, and mandatory boiler inspections will be required for many commercial properties.

This will inevitably lead to the identification of more underperforming systems and the need for upgrades. With the sophisticated wall-hung options now available, heating firms are well placed to respond and to be able to offer solutions in almost any type of building.

Interest-free loans of up to £400 000 from the Carbon Trust repayable from energy savings and Enhanced Capital Allowances are unlocking funds for investing in energy-efficiency improvements. Also, many large building users will have to buy carbon permits from 2011 under the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) and so are looking at how they can fund solutions that reduce their carbon emissions.

 

This combination of commercial and legislative drivers is creating a very healthy long-term market for commercial wall-hung boilers.

Dave Lacey is commercial director (UK & Ireland) for Vaillant.

 

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