Old Road Campus, University of Oxford

Type of works: supply and installation of Econet air-handling units.

Fläkt Woods’ Econet air-handling units, offering world leading energy saving technology were specified on the new centre of excellence in radiation biology and oncology at Old Road Campus in Oxford for the University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Clinical medicine.

The company’s expertise was called upon to help precisely match the requirements of the new facility with the latest ventilation equipment available. Working for Foreman Roberts, Econet air-handling system was suggested as the most economical way to ventilate the building, it is 70-75% efficient (20% more efficient than plate heat exchangers) and more versatile than any HVAC system currently available. The buildings will house 16 research groups and up to 170 scientists and clinicians in the newly constructed, custom-built space.

Econet is a packaged liquid-coupled energy recovery system with a unique optimising control system incorporating highly efficient use of energy as well as space and installation flexibility. Because such large coils are used, they can be utilized for all the heating and cooling as and when required.

The system comprises of supply and extract coil, inverter driven pump set, dedicated optimizing controls set and all the valves and sensors required for the correct use of the system. The coils are installed within the air-handling unit (AHU) but the rest comes as a pre-piped, preconfigured, preprogrammed and pre-commissioned pump pack suitable for direct connection to the supply coil.

The high-efficiency run around system is ideally suited as energy saving is a paramount requirement for the facility. Econet will allow the developer to charge more rental value as the overheads to the leaseholder are significantly reduced.

Fläkt Woods has been working in 24 hours stints under tight conditions so that the new centre is ready on time. The Gray Cancer Institute (part of the Oxford University) will be joining with the Medical Research Council Radiation and Genome Stability Unit, and the University of Oxford at the new facility.