A low-carbon development and waste heat recovery project set in the vacant upper floors at 71 Brewing in Dundee to form a taproom, beer and cookery school, creative studios and ancillary spaces.
The Red Brick Creative facility continues the development of the former Blackness Iron Works in Dundee with improved visitor facilities for the brewery but also to deliver attractive workshop and studio spaces for Dundee’s flourishing creative sector. Our building services engineering expertise helped our client achieve a building warrant approval and final construction of the first floor facilities and the waste heat recovery system.
The existing brewery process at ground floor of this site used cooling plant to capture the waste heat from the production process and reject it directly to atmosphere. Our challenge was to design a scheme which could store the waste heat and utilise it for space heating and water heating within the upper floors. The new scheme needed to be adaptable for phased delivery as the building would be developed in at least two key phases, with the first floor initially providing the taproom, stores and workshop, and the second floor following with the creative studios and exhibition space. A waste heat profiling exercise was conducted and overlaid with the projected heat demand profile to inform the sizing and duty of the new heat pumps. The anticipated costs and return on investment resulting from the new heating plant was considered as part of our work and formed an input to the respective funding applications.
The fabric of the building was improved under the architectural specification and the methods for heating and cooling within the new fit-out areas were then driven by low-carbon technology including heat pumps, waste heat recovery, and zonal control. Future development plans targeting onsite electricity generation, new EV charging facilities and the evolution of a decarbonised electricity grid will complement the waste heat recovery measures to drive the development towards a zero-carbon energy balance.
Project team:
Architect: Kennedy Twaddle
MEP Engineer: Ardler Engineering Design
Civil & Structural Engineer: McKinney Nicolson
Ventilation Installer: Acuvent
Cooling Network: 71 Brewing