Castle Park Water Source Heat Pump Project

The Castle Park Heat Pump project is, we believe, the largest single water source heat pump installation in the UK and a first for England.  It consists of three main elements: 

The Abstraction platform sits slightly above the water in Bristol Harbour and supports the pipework which is submerged.  This takes water from the harbour and pumps it into the main energy centre.

The main energy centre is a custom-built structure which houses the 3MW water source heat pump and associated plant and equipment.  Vital Energi’s in-house architectural & structural engineers developed the design working closely with the BCC & the Environmental agency to create a steel frame and block building which was later cladded in cedar.

The third main component of the project is the prefabricated plant room which is the main interface point to the new district heating network. The plantroom also provides addition load during peak periods and planed maintenance events.

Water is taken from the river via the abstraction pipework.  The water is filtered at this stage to prevent debris from entering the system and is passed through the water source heat pump where the latent heat reacts with ammonia and creates low pressure vapour which can be compressed to a high-pressure vapour of around 110°C.

Heat from the water source heat pump is directed into a thermal store which then feeds into the Bristol Heat Network, making the overall system lower carbon and demonstrating large scale heat pumps can be plugged into existing city-wide schemes.