Firth park community college

Case Study Firth Park Community Arts College Breathing life in to the arts

Architect: HLM Architects (Sheffield) Project Consulting Engineers: Mott MacDonald Main Contractor: Vinci Construction UK Cladding Contractor: Rooksby Roofing Ltd System Manufacturer: CA Building Products Systems: Twin-Therm® wall, SolarWall® Materials: 218m2 SolarWall® in Corus Colorcoat Prisma® Anthracite (7016) Estimated Energy savings: 43,531 kWh per annum Estimated C02 savings: 10.94t CO2 per annum

Firth Park Community Arts College just north of Sheffield City Centre have recently installed a 218m2 SolarWall® Transpired Solar Collector (TSC) on their new 1,300m² state-of-the-art sports hall and dance studio.

Currently serving 1350 pupils and utilised regularly by the local community during evenings and weekends, the new sports facility and improved games area demonstrates the schools aspirations to provide high quality indoor sports

and dance facilities which will ultimately lead to a further increase in community usage and enable the school to excel in the field of dance.

Solar air heating system The innovative SolarWall® solar air heating system uses to the sun’s energy to effectively pre-heat the supply air to the building’s central heating plant which services the sports hall, dance studio and changing rooms. The system is used to help provide significant reductions in the buildings overall gas consumption and resulting CO2 emissions whilst at the same time continually supplying levels of ventilation over and above those demanded by current building regulations.

CA’s Twin-Therm® built up insulated wall system was also specifically chosen for use in the area behind the SolarWall® to help achieve an overall insulation value of 0.20W/m²K when combined with a blockwork wall.

Transpired Solar Collector The SolarWall® Transpired Solar Collector is a truly renewable energy source and is only available through CA Group in the UK. The principle of the technology is simple and there are no

moving parts, keeping maintenance at a minimum. The system consists of a transpired collector which is installed as an additional skin to a building’s southerly facing elevation (where the sun’s energy is maximised.) The collector is manufactured from pre-coated, profiled steel, with thousands of tiny perforations uniformly spaced across the panel. It is installed in a way that creates an air cavity between the collector and the original elevation. As sunlight strikes the surface of the SolarWall® and is absorbed, solar heat conducts to the thermal boundary layer of air which lines the outer surface of the collector.

This heated boundary layer of air is then

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Case Study

The air space inside the SolarWall® is under negative pressure, drawing the warm air upwards drawn through the perforations, into the air cavity, before the heat can escape by convection, virtually eliminating heat loss from the surface of the plate. The solar heated air is then utilised within the building’s HVAC system to provide tempered fresh air.

Working in conjunction with CA the AmbiRad Group have designed a range of HVAC units to integrate with SolarWall®. At Firth Park the units supply fully integrated heating plus heat recovery from the extract air supply, in addition the Dance Studio unit supplied both heating and cooling via an air to air heat pump. Working in tandem with the SolarWall, the system optimises the use of the renewable solar heated air, using supplementary heat only where necessary, delivering significant reductions in both fuel usage and carbon emissions.

Independently tested The SolarWall® system has been independently tested, monitored, and proven by BSRIA to reduce heating demand by more than 50% and an independent thermal model report

by Battle McCarthy has shown that SolarWall® can provide up to 20% of a building’s total energy requirements.

A comparison of renewable technologies carried out by DSA Engineering examined the potential for onsite renewable energy generation

The fresh, solar heated air is drawn into the building via a fan / heating unit and delivered via an air distribution system

at a proposed site. When it compared 5 renewables; photovoltaic’s, solar thermal, ground source heat pumps, wind turbines and SolarWall®, it found that only one system was economically viable and satisfied the 10% onsite renewable energy target for the development – that was SolarWall®.

iSBEM inclusion The inclusion of the TSC technology into the April 2010 revision of iSBEM v4.0 allows architects and consulting engineers to witness firsthand the significant benefits that can be provided by the SolarWall® system. Released to accommodate the latest revision to Part L of the Building Regulations, iSBEM v4.0 is the software that will be capable of directly analysing the improvement in building energy performance and subsequent asset rating that the Transpired Solar Collectors can provide.

CarbonNetural The SolarWall® system was supplied using Corus Colorcoat Prisma® which provides a modern, smooth appearance which is backed by the 25 year maintenance and inspection free Confidex® Guarantee.

Colorcoat Prisma® facilitates a highly streamlined construction process due to its flexibility, durability and ease of handling. When used alongside SolarWall®, it offers significant improvements in solar collector efficiency due to the high thermal

Colorcoat Prisma, Confidex and Confidex Sustain are registered trademarks of Corus.

absorption of the coating, which combined with the reduction in CO2 provided by the installation of SolarWall®, results in the delivery of truly sustainable buildings. It also comes with the Corus Confidex Sustain® Guarantee ensuring all of the unavoidable carbon emissions created throughout their entire life, cradle to cradle, is offset by investing in environmental projects worldwide.

Sustainability aim Andrew Brewster, SolarWall® Design Engineer commented: “The aim of the whole project was to improve long term sustainability of the school and impart sustainability culture amongst staff and students. The SolarWall® system will contribute to this and has helped the building achieve a ‘Very Good’ BREEAM Rating. The SolarWall® system will enable Firth Park Community Arts College to generate an estimated 43,531kWh per annum and save 10.94t of equivalent CO2.“

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