The installation of Ability Projects’ Matrix fan-coil units in the new £20 million Aberystwyth Regional Office of the Welsh Assembly provides infinitely variable speed control of the entire fan-coil unit and each fan in it — enabling each air duct to be balanced for air volume through fan speed alone. The building comprises 7700 m2 of open-plan office accommodation with meeting rooms on three floors and public area and staff restaurant on the ground floor. It is designed to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.

Monodraught has worked with supermarket chain Waitrose to develop a retail lighting fitting with a Sunpipe integrated into an artificial lighting fitting. The Composite Sunpipe Assembly (CSA) is designed to maximise the use of daylight while controlling it and balancing it with artificial light. The success of the installation in customer toilets and office areas in the Altrincham store has prompted plans to extend the concept to other spaces in branch interiors.

Accurate control of temperature and humidity in cellular telephone exchanges in seven FIFA World Cup venues in South Africa is provided by Airedale. A total of 14 AlphaCool precision air-conditioning units, two in each stadium. Two AlphaCool units were already installed in one of the three existing stadia.

Oventrop valves have been extensively used for control and system balancing in the new wing of Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Londonderry. R&F Mechanical Services chose over 300 Oventrop TRVs, and Aquastrom T Plus multi-function DHW secondary-circulation regulating valves have also been installed.

Almost the entire product range of Trox has been used to create innovative solutions for six of the 10 FIFA World Cup stadia in South Africa. Stadia and multi-function arenas are particularly demanding projects, but Trox was able to meet their requirements with its components and systems.

The pumping requirements of the new £5 million teaching and visitor centre of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SMAS) near Oban are met by a selection of Grundfos Pumps. The solution was developed with contractor Hulse Building services and consultants Hurley Palmer Flatt.

The Grand Union Canal is the energy source for two heat pumps providing trench heating for Associated Architects in the Mailbox Building in Birmingham. Two 26 kW Aquatop T26 heat pumps from MHS Boilers have been installed, along with a 400 l buffer vessel.

Temperatures of 30 to 35°C in a 6000 m2 factory producing liquid soaps have been reduced to 20 to 25°C following the installation of Breezair evaporative coolers by Cosaf. PZ Cussons needed a solution for its overheating production areas and summertime solar gain, and Cosaf was chosen to design, supply and install a low-energy, low-carbon cooling system to overcome the problem of an uncomfortable working environment.

Providing a warm welcome to the 43-storey Strata Tower in the Castle House development at the Elephant & Castle in London will be an underfloor heating system supplied by Timoleon to serve the entire lobby area. The system was chosen by building-services contractor Briggs & Forrester.

Following the upgrading of the building-management system at the Gatehouse Theatre in Stafford, heating costs have been halved, despite the severity of last Winter. This 19th-century building in the centre of Stafford houses a wide variety of professional shows and amateur productions throughout the year. Facilities include conference rooms, a studio theatre and recording space.

The transformation of Golden Hill Fort on the Isle of Wight into 18 luxury hones includes designer radiators and towel rails from HMS Radiators. Constructed in the 1860s, this hexagonal Grade 1 listed landmark sits 60 m above the north-west coast of the island and was positioned to defend the island against attack from across the English Channel.

A housing development that is exposed to an average force four wind speed the whole year round is ventilated by Titon heat-recovery ventilation units. HRV1 Q Plus units have been installed in the Shetland Islands for the Hjaltland Housing Association Quoys phase three development, consisting of 34 homes in Lerwick of two and three bedrooms.

The rebuilding of Sinfin Community School in Derby after a major fire includes a host of sustainable features. They include a biomass boiler supported by a Hamworthy Wessex ModuMax high-efficiency modular boiler, a wind turbine, natural ventilation and rainwater recycling.

New filters in air-handling plant at Heathrow Airport are expected to lead to savings of over a £1 million a year and a reduction in CO2 emissions of 6000 t a year. Vokes-Air Group has been working with Heathrow Airport to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Already contracted to supply, fit and dispose of filters, Vokes-Air has installed its Synsafe Revo pocket filter following a full review of the airport’s current arrangements for filters in air-handling units.

An 85% reduction in cooker-hood electricity costs is being achieved at Pizza Hut’s Watford Dome branch following the installation of two ABB Drives on the air-extraction cooker-hood system. The new system comprises a 1.5 kW drive and a 3 kW drive and was installed by Food Industry Technical to control air supply and extraction by monitoring carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and temperature in the cooker hood.

Discreet and weatherproof protection for plant room in the roofs of two buildings on St Ives Business Park in Cambridgeshire is provided by custom-built louvres from Colman. S.i. One (1660 m2) and S.i. Two (1950 m2) form part of a £10 million prestigious office project by Endurance Estates. The 14 000 m2 mixed-use business park in a lakeside setting comprises two headquarters-style buildings built to the highest specifications, with a BREEAM environmental rating.

Renewable energy for the new Royal Mail distribution hub in Swan Valley, Northamptonshire, is provide by 800 m2 of SolarWall from CA Group. It helps the building reduce its operational carbon emissions by 66% and contributes to a total of 59 t of CO2 savings a year.

MHS Radiators has supplied 544 of its chrome and white electric-only Space towel rails for the 43-storey Strata SE1 residential tower in London. The project is part of the £1.5 billion regeneration of the Elephant & Castle area and is London’s tallest residential tower.

When a recently installed Fireray 5000 optical beam smoke detector sounded an alarm at 8.45 a.m. because acetone had caught fire, a sequence of events was initiated that say 10 fire engines arrive within five minutes to quickly subdue the blaze. All staff were evacuated safely.

A range of fans has been supplied by Air Movement Supplies, part of the Elta Group, for the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, venue for the semi-final of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. A mix of smoke ventilation and axial fans (with silencers) was supplied for ventilating the car parks and the plant room. Centrifugal fans for the Kruger range were installed as part of the stadium’s air-conditioning system.

WindowMaster is supplying natural-ventilation and control systems to 53 schools in Derbyshire being built in the first phase of a 10-year Building Schools for the Future programme. Derry Building Services selected WindowMaster because it can provide an integrated approach to control of the heating and natural-ventilation systems in the schools. The first three schools in the programme are Springwell Community School, Bolsover School and Heritage School.

The Bloomsbury Hotel in London, part of The Doyle Collection, has installed two more Hi-Flow gas-fired storage water heaters from Andrews Water Heaters, bringing to nine the number installed over the past six years. They supply domestic hot water to 150 luxury bedrooms on eight floors and to the kitchens for the hotel’s restaurant, The Landseer British Kitchen.

Weatherite Building Services has been appointed by the John Lewis Partnership for a major upgrade of the heating system for its store at Brent Cross Shopping Centre in North London. This store has over 11 000 m2 of selling space across three floors and is undergoing a complete upgrade of its HVAC systems.

Following a revision of the main plant controls strategy for communal heating systems of Wandsworth Council, AEC Environmental has achieved energy savings of 30%. The approach was based on revising the controls strategy for the main plant to eliminate inefficiencies and ensure a good match of heating supply to demand using AEC’s analytical techniques.

Utility costs at the Apollo Torbay 9-screen multiplex cinema have been halved following a survey by energy engineers from BG Controls and the implementation of a number of enhanced building control strategies. Compared with other equivalent cinemas run by Apollo Cinemas, gas and electricity bills alone for the air-conditioned Torbay cinema were three times greater.

Budget hotel chain Travelodge has chosen Lochinvar equipment to supply domestic hot water for its new Clacton-on-Sea Central Travelodge. Close to Clacton pier, this hotel has 57 rooms.

To overcome the problem of corrosion of steel pipework restricting flow to plants in a horticultural nursery, Friatherm plastic pipework has been installed. Toon Nurseries in south-west Derby supplies up to four million young plants to the trade industry each year. The centre was refurbishing the pipework system used to supply its thermabeds with hot water.

Energy-efficient lighting for the new offices of Moore Management in St Helier, Jersey, is being achieved with the help of a lighting-management system from ALC Lighting Controls. Specified by consulting engineers Henderson Green, the system comprises presence detection, timed on/off switching and customisable screen setting. It controls a wide range of luminaires from general office lighting to cold-cathode light sources.

JS Humidifiers has installed three Neptronic SKE resistive steam humidifiers at the Bugs exhibit and invertebrate Conservation Centre of London Zoo. These humidifiers help maintain high humidity around exhibits such as Giant Fregate beetles, Partula snails and colonies of Leaf cutter ants.

A state-of-the-art sports centre at St John’s Beaumont School is the latest of over 700 sports halls in the UK to be heated using AmbiRad’s Nor-Ray-Vac radiant heating system. The new sports centre includes a 9 m climbing wall, indoor cricket facilities, performing arts centre, rowing room and a gymnasium alongside the main athletics hall. A draping system can turn it into a marquee environment for plays and prize givings.

As part of a major refurbishment at HMS Raleigh, the Royal Navy’s premier training establishment in Cornwall, the domestic-hot-water load has been separated from the heating load and decentralised. This has been achieved using direct-fired water heaters to increase energy efficiency and reduce heat losses from long pipe runs.

MHS Boilers has supplied 155 of its Nexus district-heating units to new student accommodation at Tottenham Hale in London. Designed to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating and housing 687 students, the £53 million development was built by the Unite Group and forms part of the wider Hale Village regeneration scheme.

Having specified the Zip HydroTap on numerous occasions for clients, ttsp Architects has installed two HydroTaps in its London office to give its 60 staff instant filtered boiling and chilled water for drinks. Zip BC100/125 HydroTaps have been installed on both floors of the Clerkenwell office.

Energy costs at Castle Howard, one of Britain’s finest historic houses, have been reduced by nearly 90% following the installation of two 100 kW Dimplex ground-source heat pumps to replace the previous heating and hot-water systems. Measurements over three months of operation since the heat pumps become operational in October saw average fuel bills fall from £4690 per month to £644.

An imaginative solution devised by Vaillant to replace a 30-year-old atmospheric gas boiler in the City of Lincoln Guildhall, a listed building dating back to Roman times, avoided damage to the outside fabric and enabled the existing heating system to be used. The old boiler in the basement was deemed inefficient and replaced by a wall-hung 65 kW ecoTEC boiler.

With access to the fuel store for a new biomass boiler at Langley Academy in Slough being in a roadway used by the occasional heavy vehicle, Bilco was called in to develop a solution. The company provided two JD-ALH20 floor doors, which were supplied and fitted by Matte Fabrications, to enable easy delivery of wood chips by tipper lorry.

Biomass boilers have been teamed up with gas-fired condensing boilers to heat Croydon’s tallest building, the 82 m-high Altitude 25 tower. The boilers were chosen from Remeha’s Gilles biomass and Gas Eco ranges.

The extensive use of renewable energy and CHP will reduce carbon emissions by 15 t a year and energy bills by £8700 for the new 24-bed Malvern Community Hospital, making it one of the greenest hospitals in the country. The hospital will utilise renewable geothermal energy for heating, cooling and hot water. It will also generate electricity using a CHP unit.

Lighting in the world-famous Ashmolean Museum, now reopened after a major redevelopment, is controlled by KNX intelligent building technology installed by KNX UK member Andromeda Telematics. The system will save energy and provide flexibility for future changes. It also provided the automatic testing out of hours required for a public building.

The pumping requirements of the redeveloped Briggait building in Glasgow’s Merchant Quay, are met by a range of Grundfos pumps. This Victorian building was home to the main fish market for nearly a hundred years, until it moved to a new location in the 1970s. Over the years, it fell into serious disrepair.

To provide the same flexibility of lighting control when UK law firm Addleshaw Goddard changed the layout of its office in the City of London from cellular to open plan, a Delmatic open-protocol LON control system was chosen. It provide total flexibility of control for zoning and partitioning and achieves energy efficiency through presence-related switching and daylight-linked dimming. The lighting scheme was designed by Chapman Bathurst Specialist Lighting.

Thermo-Floor has completed the installation of underfloor heating for nine new 3-bedroom family eco-homes in Bradford. The company worked with Accent Group on ‘The Accent Healthy Home’ constructed to level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Vent-Axia has been contracted to provide property developer Redrow Homes with its Lo-Carbon Centra extract fan to help meet Levels 3 and 4 of the Code for Sustainable homes. Ronnie George, managing director of Vent-Axia, says, ‘Distributors should now prepare to receive requests for the Centra from contractors working for Redrow Homes. With a portfolio of over a hundred developments nationwide, our distributors should benefit significantly from this partnership.’