Project Details 

  • Client: University of Leeds

  • Status: Complete

  • Value: £760,104.66

  • Duration: 26 weeks

This project was one of the first in a new initiative undertaken by the University of Leeds in its commitment to reducing its carbon emissions throughout its business.

The brief for the project was to significantly reduce the energy usage within the Worsley building, which had the highest consumption in the University estate. 

The building is a shared facility with the Leeds General Infirmary Dental School which had a requirement for clinical ventilation.  The installed central ventilation system was needed to provide clinical ventilation for the school and was the main contributor to the high energy usage.  As this was no longer a necessity due to significant areas of the building changing from clinical to academic, this project was commissioned to reduce the energy consumption by instigating a control regime that would enable areas of the building to be switched on / off from the Building Management System (BMS) depending on an area’s usage.

This was a 26-week project to upgrade the system for several floors to allow for the installation of automated volume dampers to each of the 20-no. supply and extract risers. 

The works provided the automatic control of the air volume in the risers to suit the occupancy of the floors and areas on a 24/7 basis.  The air handling units supply and the extract fans were adjusted to provide a balanced ventilation system.

These alterations required installation of power supplies fed from local distribution boards to provide power to the on-floor controllers and control cabling to allow the system to be an extension of the existing building BMS and therefore, connected back to the University of Leeds central computerised system.