J D Wetherspoon goes to ground
Customers at J D Wetherspoon's Kettleby Cross pub in Melton Mowbray are benefiting from energy efficient heating and cooling provided by a ground source heat pump from Danfoss Heat Pumps UK. The DHP-R heat pump was installed by renewable energy specialist Eartheat as part of a major refurbishment following a fire at the popular pub.
The 26 kW heat pump is supplied by ten 300 ft-deep energy wells in land underneath the paved area at the front of the building. These energy wells extract heat from the ground via a circuit of glycol in a ground loop, which then passes through a heat exchanger in the heat pump and then via a refrigeration circuit. This is used to feed hot water into the underfloor heating.
The system at Kettleby Cross can also be reversed to provide passive cooling by transferring heat from inside the pub back through the underfloor system and into the ground. This is achieved by the pump feeding chilled water into the underfloor pipes which lowers the air temperature in the building. In turn, the heat within the building warms the water in the pipes, which is then pumped back into the ground loop. As the water goes through the ground loop system it transfers its heat to the surrounding soil.
