The Energy Centre is due for completion in spring 2010 when it will begin providing heated water to the Olympic Park venues. The Energy Centre will then be connected to further venues and buildings when they are completed, delivering an early legacy of essential services throughout the Olympic Park.
The Olympic Park Energy Centre is being constructed by GDF Suez Energy Services, through its subsidiary Cofely East London Energy, together with approximately 16km of Community Energy Networks. The construction of the Energy Centre is being financed by GDF Suez Energy Services who will recover their investment through the long term operation rights of the new infrastructure
Notes to editors:
Images of the Energy Centre construction works and designs can be downloaded at: http://mm.gettyimages.com/mm/nicePath/locog?nav=pr130359289
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For further information please contact the Olympic Delivery Authority Press Office on +44 (0)20 3 2012 700.
The construction of the venues and infrastructure of the London 2012 Games is funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor, The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.
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Sustainable features 'will set a model for future urban regeneration'
The Energy Centre will include a range of sustainability features to create a ‘mean, lean and green’ building helping to reduce the carbon emissions of the Olympic Park and setting a benchmark for future regeneration schemes. The Energy Centre is being constructed in the west of the Olympic Park and will provide an efficient heating and cooling system across Olympic Park site for the Games and for the new buildings and communities that will develop after 2012. The Energy Centre will include biomass boilers using sustainable biomass fuels to generate heat, and a Combined Cooling Heat and Power (CCHP) plant to capture the heat generated by electricity production. The project is one of the largest energy centre schemes to be built so far in the UK, and is being designed and built to be:
Mean
- Building designed to utilise recycled materials and a derelict Victorian building retained and reused to house key parts of energy centre equipment
- Flexible modular building design – avoids overcapacity in first phase of development but allows future technologies to be incorporated as they are developed and as demand grows after 2012.
Lean
- Deliver energy via low carbon technologies - a Combined Cooling Heat & Power (CCHP) plant will capture the heat generated by electricity production
- Community energy networks designed to operate at low temperatures
- Heating and cooling networks designed to minimise losses
- More efficient conversion of fuel compared to conventional gas and coal-fired energy plants.
Green
- Biomass boilers will use sustainable biomass fuels to generate heat, contributing to 20 per cent renewable energy target across Olympic Park
- Zero carbon renewable energy sources used such as biofuel
- CCHP plant will lead to carbon reduction of more than 1000 tonnes per year
- Recycled wastewater will be used for Energy Centre cooling towers.
Construction work started on the Energy Centre in August 2008 and progress over the last year includes:
- More than 200 piles installed more than 20m in length to form the foundations of the building
- Over 500 tonnes of steel installed to create the frame of the Energy Centre which will be 45m tall at its highest point
- 3,500 square metres of concrete ‘planks’ lifted into place to form the floors and roof of the Energy Centre
- 5 cooling towers lifted into place as the first of the major plant to be installed at the energy centre. These towers are each the size of a small house
- 3 hotwater boilers installed each around 60 tonnes in total
- Work now underway to install the steel cladding around the outer shell of the Energy Centre
- Work well underway on roof replacement works and structural improvements to the retained Victorian building.