Plas Menai Outdoor Sports Facility

Value: £1.9m
Client: Sports Wales

Sports Wales commissioned Rybka to develop a low/zero carbon heating system design for the existing Plas Menai Sports Facility building. The existing listed building, constructed in the 1980s and utilising oil boilers as its main thermal energy source, was upgraded to meet Sports Wales' aspirations for a low carbon facility at Plas Menai.

Rybka investigated various heat generation system options. These included water source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps and biomass heating. After detailed client consultation and an in-depth appraisals exercise, ground source heat pumps were considered the most viable low carbon heat source for the site.

Rybka have developed a design for the new heating system that included close liaison with specialists to determine the characteristics of the ground conditions, locations, quantities and depths of bore holes, sizes of heat pumps, and hydraulic interfaces with the building's existing heating systems. With the new heat generation source operating at different hydraulic characteristics to the existing boilers (lower flow and return temperatures, reduced delta Ts etc), this resulted in required changes to the room side heat emitters across the building, AHU heater batteries and secondary pump sets. Therefore, replacement of these systems were also proposed to form part of the project scope. As part of this system upgrade, Rybka also designed mechanical ventilation plant upgrades which were carefully designed to help lower the facility's space heating demands and take careful cognisance of the existing spatial provisions for the AHU plant. The existing AHUs (4 number) were internally refurbished with new components installed (fans, motors, dampers, coils, filters, heat recovery devices) to achieve modern standards of ventilation and high energy efficiency levels.

The project started on-site in November 2021 and was successfully handed over in February 2023.