Advinia Leads The Way In New Green Heating Revolution For Care Homes

Advinia Health Care has announced major plans to reduce its carbon footprint by replacing the heating systems in multiple care homes with zero carbon Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP).

The scheme will see Advinia take advantage of government grants and undertake to remove the existing systems, powered by gas and oil, and replace them with the clean energy alternative.

The upgrade will not only be good news for the environment but will, over time, save the firm millions in reduced heating bills and maintenance costs.

The new system works by recovering heat from 130 metres below ground floor level, storing that energy inside 2,000-litre buffer vessels and then distributing it around the care home’s radiators.

Head of Property Services Darren Miller, who is leading the GSHP project for Advinia, said there were a myriad of benefits for the company, residents and the environment.

Darren said: “The GSHP system allows us to achieve a number of our main objectives at once.

“We can reduce our carbon footprint, lower the cost of heating our homes and enjoy the benefits of a system with vastly-improved reliability.

“The savings we will make on heating bills and engineering repairs to traditional heating systems can be used to enhance other aspects of our homes.

“We aim to redistribute the money into areas that will benefit colleagues and residents.”

Work has already begun on the first six of Advinia’s care homes which will be fitted with the GSHP system.

It takes 10 –12 weeks to complete work at each home, but the impact on residents and residents in the surrounding areas is relatively small as it is not a noisy procedure.

Advinia has partnered with Renewable Heat Generation to complete the work. They are installing the GSHP systems and previously worked with Advinia to install biomass heating systems under a Government green scheme.

Darren added: “With Renewable Heat Generation drill teams taking on the installation work for us, we’re confident we can bring in the project in time and within budget.

“As well as the GSHP scheme, we’ve changed over to eco-friendly LED lighting in our homes now, and I’m looking for more ways to improve our carbon footprint.

“We believe in the collective responsibility of all businesses in the fight against climate change, and the GSHP system is a significant step forward for Advinia.”

This view was endorsed by Dr Sanjeev Kanoria, founder and Chairman of the Advinia Group who said: “The heat pumps will allow us to save money on our energy bills, which means we can free up cash for the care of our residents. They also enable us to burn less oil and gas, which contributes to climate change. Oil and gas is increasingly unnecessary thanks to new renewable energy technologies.”

Mark Roberts from Renewable Heat Generation said: “Advinia from the outset were very determined to lay the foundations for their 20 year carbon emissions reduction plan by adopting any and all renewable technologies available in the market place.

Through a combination of PV, Biomass, Ground Source Heat Pumps and Air source heat pumps, they are now on target to reduce their carbon emissions by 264,000 tonnes over the next 20 years, with more potential savings to come.  That’s an extraordinary number across their 36 care homes and are always pushing us to come up with more any more ideas and applications to further reduce their carbon score.”