A State of the Art History and Library Centre for Kent

The recently completed Kent History and Library Centre has been described as one of the most innovative in the UK, providing local people with state of the art facilities and better access to Kent’s rich culture and heritage. It houses around 14 kilometres of historic material relating to Kent, dating back to 699 AD, and is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in local history.

This £27m joint scheme with Kent County Council, Bouygues UK and Warings Contractors is a mixed use development. The building provides a home for the new flagship Library and archives for the county of Kent, alongside 57 extra care apartments for Housing 21 and 60 affordable homes for West Kent Housing Association.

In order to provide energy efficient, sustainable housing, the West Kent Housing Association apartment block, Tennyson Lodge, has been constructed to the very latest building standards and benefits from an Evinox communal heating system. All of the apartments are heated from a communal boiler system, which provides instantaneous heating and hot water via ModuSat Twin Plate Heat Interface Units.

The Evinox Communal Heating system includes central plant equipment that operates on Biofuel and Gas. The Evinox boilers were chosen due to their excellent seasonal efficiency performance, which enabled the client to obtain extra points for BREAM certification. The Evinox ModuSat TP heat interface units were supplied with bespoke flow and return connection positions to meet the requirements of the design specification and Evinox pre-installation rigs were used to ensure installation was quick and simple.

Unique Billing and Surveillance solution
The Evinox card reader system is being used at Tennyson Lodge to control costs and ensure the system operates debt free. West Kent Housing Association decided the card reader system was perfectly suited as it provides their residents with a choice of how they pay for their heating and hot water. Tenants can purchase their energy credit from a local Payzone outlet, online via the Evinox Energy website, over the telephone or alternatively they can pay via a monthly direct debit.

Meters are read remotely via a GSM modem using the Evinox BUS system. This solution also provides heat energy and mains cold water consumptions as well as flow and return temperatures from the communal heating central plant room installation to the individual apartments and the actual flow rate of the communal heating primaries into the apartment.

The Evinox card reader system controls costs and therefore keeps the tariff rate down due to less administration and less debt management service being required. As a result of this the occupiers can all benefit from reduced running costs. The Housing Association also has the peace of mind that the communal system is being managed efficiently without ongoing increasing costs.