Palestra fuel cell trigeneration system feasibility study
It’s possible for building owners and occupiers to accommodate and plan for the retrofit of decentralised energy technologies into an existing building – even while the building is being occupied.
Organisation:
The London Climate Change Agency
Size:
Large
Location:
Palestra, Southwark
Aim:
To demonstrate the feasibility of retrofitting an occupied building to incorporate decentralised energy systems using innovative low carbon technologies without disturbing the working place.
How the London Climate Change Agency made a difference
Palestra is a busy building that houses the London Climate Change Agency (LCCA) and London Development Agency (LDA), with a resource of approximately 550 staff. The building already incorporates photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines.
To further reduce carbon emissions, the LCCA undertook a feasibility study to design London’s first commercially sized fuel cell system into Palestra.
The system needed to be ‘future proof’ and able to adapt to up-and-coming technologies and fuels. The first phase of the study, to design a system to supply combined cooling, heating and power to the floors occupied by the LDA and the LCCA, identified a 200kWe combined heat and power (CHP) trigeneration fuel cell as the most appropriate sized system. The fuel cell would be adaptable to use renewable gas in the future and reuse water produced and will deliver at least 20% reduction in CO2 emissions.
The second phase of the study was to design a conventional CHP system up to 850 kWe with additional heat fired absorption cooling and thermal storage to provide heat and electricity to the remaining floors. The reduction in CO2 emissions for this part of the project will be dependent on the size of the gas fired CCHP selected.
The systems need to be separated for energy generation and consumption. This will increase system performance and will work to maximise operation throughout the system’s lifetime.
The greatest issue encountered was to reconcile conflicting needs of the various parties involved and agreeing on the right balance between innovation and commercial viability.
The project demonstrates the feasibility of working with building owners and occupiers to accommodate and plan for the retrofit of decentralised energy technologies into an existing building, whilst the building is being occupied.
It also shows how it is possible to run an existing building on low carbon energy, reducing the CO2 emissions by more than 20%.
