Castle Park Energy Centre wins top prize in European sector awards

Our ground-breaking Castle Park Energy Centre has taken the top prize at a major European energy awards ceremony.

The “Heat Pump City of the Year”, awarded by the European Heat Pump Association, highlights global cities and regions taking advantage of this innovative, low carbon technology.

The Castle Park Energy Centre, developed in collaboration with Bristol City Council and Vital Energi and part of the city’s Heat Network, contains the largest water source heat pump in England. It claimed the top spot ahead of 50 of Europe’s highest profile projects.

The water source heat pump works by taking natural heat from river water to heat thousands of households across Bristol as part of the district heating network.

This network of underground pipes currently provides heating and hot water to around 1000 local homes and businesses and continues to expand to new areas across the city.

Almost 20% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating our homes and workspaces. Water source heat pumps are estimated to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building by 80%, helping support the city’s fight against climate change.

Stephen Baker, Managing Director of Goram Homes, says:

“I’m thrilled Goram Homes has been recognised for this innovative development in our city. Water Source Heat Pumps generate the lowest carbon heat around, and this is a shining example of harnessing our local resources – the floating harbour – to provide cleaner, greener heating for Bristol. I look forward to building more homes that can benefit from technology like this.”

Councillor Kye Dudd, Cabinet Member for Environment, Ecology, Energy and Waste at Bristol City Council, said:

“Castle Park Energy Centre and the Bristol Heat Network play an integral part in decarbonising the city, and I’m delighted that our work with Goram Homes and Vital Energi has been recognised.

“Developing the heat networks has so many benefits for the city, including the reduction in fuel poverty, cutting carbon emissions and creating thousands of jobs to support the local economy.

“The installation of the 3MW Water Source heat pump and abstraction equipment manufactured by Star Refrigeration were only capable of being deployed with the establishment of an expert multidisciplinary team with Vital Energi as Principal Contractor, Sustainable Energy Ltd as lead designers and DQS as QS/Project manager.

“This award highlights our ability to deliver the kind of bold and innovative solutions that Bristol needs to tackle the climate emergency. Bristol’s Heat Network will continue to expand through our City Leap Energy Partnership, delivering reliable, decarbonised heat to new communities, whilst creating much needed jobs across the region.”

Scott Lutton, Vital Energi’s Operations Director – North & Scotland explains,

“We’d like to congratulate Bristol City Council and Goram Homes for their fantastic achievement. This project demonstrates that WSHPs can plug into existing networks and opens up the possibility of harnessing the Gigawatts of latent heat in the UK’s rivers, which will play a large part in meeting our net zero targets.

“Heat pumps can lower energy bills and deliver strong carbon savings and Castle Park is one of the first major WSHP projects in the UK, so we’re delighted that it has gained recognition at the European level and hope it will inspire other similar projects going forwards.”

We are now working on plans for a mixed-use development to be built over the energy centre, which will benefit from the energy centre’s low carbon heating.

The European Heat Pump Association was created in 2011 to collect best practice and raise awareness of the potential of heat pump technology.