Refurbishment of one of London’s largest substations to make it more efficient, reduce its carbon emissions and provide zero-carbon heating to Tate Modern has won a place on the short list of the ICE London Civil Engineering Awards.
Director of ICE London, Miranda Housden, said: “The ICE London Awards are considered to be the most prestigious engineering awards in the capital, demonstrating innovation, creativity and social value whilst embedding a safety and sustainability culture. Shortlisted projects must be excellent in design, construction, project management, financial control, infrastructure maintenance or network operation.
“The improvements of Bankside electrical substation designed by Arup for UK Power Networks have led to greater efficiency, a reduction in carbon emissions and a supply of zero-carbon heating to Tate Modern. Bankside is the first project to provide reclaimed waste heat to a customer at a major UK substation.
“This project was a major undertaking: Bankside substation supplies electricity to large areas of central London. With continuity of supply crucial, the redevelopment was phased to avoid disturbing existing operational areas until these could be made redundant. In operational parts of the building, only limited investigative works were possible; as such the design was flexible and adapted on site.
“To deliver the project, Arup brought in a full building design team, increasing the pace of delivery and providing the client with a single point of contact. Teams from Arup, Alstom Grid and UK Power Networks worked collaboratively to meet the tight deadlines set by the London Development Agency.”
Arup’s Engineer Richard Lawson, leading the civil and building services design, contract administration, cost consultancy and CDM-C team, said: “We are delighted that our project has reached the shortlist of the ICE London Civil Engineering Awards as we are very proud of the work we have undertaken on this substation and the benefits this will bring to London’s electrical infrastructure and to Tate Modern.
“The tightly constrained site meant that civil and structural works were required to provide new and upgraded spaces within the building before the major electrical works could begin. Even though the project involved adding three new floors and increasing the load on others, Arup’s ground investigations and geotechnical analyses allowed 80% of the existing foundations to be reused without strengthening and, crucially, avoided any works to the perimeter foundations shared with Tate Modern.”
“The heat produced by the transformers in the substation, a natural consequence of changing the voltage of the electricity, had been previously wasted. With such a large substation in an area with a strong demand for heat, it made environmental and financial sense to reclaim the heat from the new, more efficient water-cooled transformers, and to use this within Tate Modern’s new extension.
“Although the principle behind recovering waste heat is simple, it takes a complex control system to reclaim maximum heat while keeping the transformers cool. Arup’s mechanical engineers and specialist controls-and-commissioning engineers worked closely with UK Power Networks and Wilson Transformers to find the best solution for the site.
“Our innovative design is now installed and has the potential to provide approximately 7,000MWh of heat each year to Tate Modern’s new building when it opens, at the latest in 2016, saving up to 1,400 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year compared with conventional gas-fired boilers.
The Judging Panel will visit all the shortlisted schemes in February, chaired by Rod Macdonald, UK Director of TSE-n Metro UK and founding partner and former chairman of Buro Happold. Judges include the Deputy Mayor of London, Cllr Victoria Borwick AM, and Executive Director of Laing O’Rourke, Howard Shiplee CBE.
The award winners will be announced on the evening of Thursday 14 March by BBC London presenter Alice Bhandhukravi.
For more information on the ICE London Civil Engineering Awards 2013 can be found at www.ice.org.uk/londonawards.
ICE London has more than 8,000 members living and working in the city. More information can be found at www.ice.org.uk/London. You can follow ICE London on Twitter: @ICE_London