A brand new secure mental health unit has just been completed in East Sussex to accommodate 45 patients.

The design team and client worked closely to provide a state of the art, low energy, 45 bedroom medium secure mental health unit, bringing together computer controlled low energy lighting, ground heat pumps and solar energy panels all controlled and integrated by sophisticated heating controls.

The unit was constructed by Building Construction Partnership Ltd, a national construction company which provides a wide range of quality building construction services to a varied client base in healthcare.

With an eye to the future – in terms of both energy costs and environmental considerations – the authority opted for a system utilising the heat always present at a more or less constant temperature in the ‘near-surface geothermal layer’ underground.

In a system designed by NIBE Energy Systems Ltd. of Chesterfield and working in close cooperation with BCP, twelve boreholes 110 metres deep were drilled into the exercise yard before landscaping. Each borehole contains a plastic tube in an elongated u-shape, within which circulates a glycol/water mixture in a closed circuit, working in rather the same manner as a car’s cooling system.

Energy from the warm ground is absorbed in the mixture and translated to two inter-connected NIBE Fighter 1330 Heat Pumps situated in the building’s boiler/utilities room. These, with a capacity of 30kW, convert the latent energy into heat for the water in a fully insulated tank situated near the Fighter units. This in turn feeds the entire under-floor central heating system and passive cooling in the summer. Back-up heating, if required to act as a boost in times of maximum peak usage, is supplied by a gas boiler and solar panels.

While the design and installation of the unit’s geothermal heating was undertaken by NIBE Energy Systems in UK, the equipment used was designed and manufactured by parent company NIBE AB in Sweden, a country where renewable energy systems of many types have been in general use for decades. Patients and staff at the new Sussex Healthcare Unit can have the warm feeling that comes not only from efficient under-floor heating but also from the satisfaction of using an energy efficient system that is as green as the grass growing over the boreholes that fuel it.