The Glen Mhor Hotel & Apartments located in the centre of Inverness, comprises of multiple hotels and self-catering accommodation overlooking the River Ness. In addition to the accommodation, there are now plans for a brewery and visitor centre to be built on site which will form part of an innovative site-wide district heating system utilising heat generated by a water source heat pump.
The hotel would like a future proof low carbon heating system to serve the site’s current heat load as well as its future demand from the new developments. In addition, they would like to provide low carbon heat to neighbouring properties including a local church.
The project will use shallow depth boreholes to draw water from the sands and gravels adjacent to the River Ness and boost this heat using a heat pump to serve the multiple buildings via a district heating network. All in time to benefit from the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme which ends on 31st March 2021.
Locogen have been involved with the project from initial concept, through to gaining Scottish Government funding and are now looking to progress into the construction phase.
The resulting impact will be a massive carbon saving for the site, long-term stable heat costs and great publicity for the hotel.
Locogen’s lead engineer on the project, David Ferguson, says: “The most exciting aspect of the project is the potential replicability of the project to other towns and cities. The utilisation of rivers as heat sources has been identified as a huge opportunity for low carbon heat generation for the country and this project provides an opportunity to demonstrate this on a working, busy site. The use of shallow depth boreholes is also a novel aspect of the design, having environmental, operational and cost benefits over deep aquifer abstraction.”
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