Fulcrum Consulting was asked to provide advice on sustainable design for this 100% affordable housing development located at the western gateway to Central London. The project comprised 5 buildings with an approximate total area of 8500m², creating 128 new dwellings.

The client's aim was to set new benchmarks in quality and sustainability for affordable housing developments. This pioneering scheme was the first in Britain to use active cooling to combat increasing summertime temperatures as part of a low carbon, low-cost approach. It included warm-air heating, a ventilation system with high-efficiency heat recovery, a solar roof system to provide domestic hot and cold water, and SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage System).

Most exciting of all, it was the UK’s first-ever application of  a remarkable sustainable technology - Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) – for space heating and comfort cooling.

Westway Beacons proved to be an ideal opportunity to put ATES – previously tried and tested in the Netherlands - into practice for the first time in the UK.

The technology works by extracting cold water (at approx 11.5°C) from a borehole in the summer months and using it to provide direct cooling. The energy cost is that of pumping only. In winter, the process is reversed. The heat generated by cooling the homes in summer months is discharged into a second borehole, creating a warm water field. When flow is reversed in the autumn/winter, this warmer water provides heating to the building, either directly or indirectly via heat pumps. Using a ‘hot’ and a ‘cold’ borehole enables us to prevent any imbalance across the aquifer as there is no depletion of water over the year.

To facilitate the transfer of technology over to the UK, Fulcrum set up a partnering arrangement with the Dutch Firm IFTechnology, market leaders in ATES technology in the Netherlands. IFTechnology was to use its unique experience to design the system and provide the workforce to drill the boreholes and put the system in place onsite.

However, one further hurdle remained. To demonstrate compliance with Building Regulations and determine level of performance against EcoHomes, the Code for Sustainable Homes and other national performance standards, the designs had to be put through government-approved software.

But the Westway project and its use of ATES was the first of its kind, and there was no facility in the official software for this type of system. Fulcrum therefore liaised directly with the BRE to establish a method for assessing performance of an ATES system in a way that could be run through the standard software.

We believe this detail exemplifies the Fulcrum approach. Not only are we prepared to promote cutting-edge sustainable technologies – we also have the commitment to move our industry forward by dealing with problems as they arise.

A trial borehole was sunk on the site as the flow characteristics and chemical analysis were still unknown. The borehole located the aquifer at a depth of 80m in the underlying chalk strata. This top layer proved to be capable of yielding high quantities of water but not for storing heat. By going deeper with the borehole the quality of the chalk became more suited to creating a thermal store.

Following this investigation the decision was made to go ahead with ATES technology on the Westway Beacons site. Two 600mm diameter boreholes were sunk on site at a distance of 50m apart, thereby eliminating cross contamination between the hot and cold fields. Remarkably, these two boreholes alone satisfy the heating and cooling demands of all the apartments within the development.

The trial borehole is now being used to provide the only supply of potable water to the site; elevated levels of sodium within the water are being treated by reverse osmosis treatment.

A post-occupation study is currently taking place to obtain real data that demonstrates the range of environmental benefits the client was looking for. As part of the UK arm of IFTechnology, IFTech is contracted to monitor the development in conjunction with Fulcrum.