Paragon House – an 11 storey teaching block at the University of West London (UWL), has recently replaced its gas boiler heating system with a ground-breaking first for Europe and the UK, by Finn Geotherm installing three x 210kW Panasonic air-to-water heat pumps with a bespoke cascading thermostatic control system to heat the entire building.
The Panasonic 210kW heat pump units installed at Paragon House were the first of their kind in the UK and Europe to be installed – the units offer outstanding efficiency with extremely high SEER and SCOP figures, can operate in temperatures as lows a -17 °C in heating mode, are quiet in operation, offer a customisable design with capacities from 20k to 210kW, and can be integrated into a BMS control system.
The Panasonic system has lowered the carbon footprint of the property and is highly energy efficient to run with little impact on the interior pipework and space within the building. The units are located on the roof to ensure they are discreet, quiet and unobtrusive to the surrounding area, having very little impact on the day to day running of the building during installation. A construction of support spreader beams and plates was designed to distribute the load within the tolerance of the roof area.
It is estimated that Paragon House will receive energy savings in the region of 1,058,000kWh per year. Considering the other two Panasonic installs at UWL, the total amount of energy saving is expected to be in excess of 500 tonnes of CO2 per annum. The above project was recently announced as the award winner of the National Renewable Heat Project of the Year at the Energy Efficiency Awards 2022.
