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Portmeirion is one of Wales' premier visitor attractions - an Italianate village of great architectural significance welcoming around 225,000 visitors per year, and famous as the setting for the television series "The Prisoner." The site presented a unique design challenge: delivering a centralised low carbon heating solution across a historically sensitive, architecturally protected village with significant topographical variation. The scheme comprises a 1 MW biomass energy centre, 1.75 km of district heat network, and connections to 26 buildings across two network zones.
Appointed following an initial pre-feasibility and heat mapping assessment, we delivered full detailed design, procurement support, and client engineer services for a new biomass energy centre and village-wide heat network - ensuring no adverse impact on the delicate building fabric, architectural character, or aesthetic quality of the village throughout. The scheme is fully accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive.
Scope
We were initially appointed to undertake a pre-feasibility and heat mapping and masterplanning assessment to identify district heating opportunities across the village. Following this, we were appointed to deliver detailed feasibility, full detailed design and specification, tender pack development, procurement support, and client engineer services for the new energy centre and heat network. Our design work included careful consideration of substation locations to ensure suitability for network pipe access and maintenance while preserving the historic appearance of all buildings, specification of heat interface units across a number of properties, and intelligent hydraulic design of the distribution system and controls to manage a 50 m elevation change across the 1.75 km network from the castle in the north to the hotel at the south. We supported Portmeirion Ltd throughout installation and commissioning, with local companies employed for all construction works, and managed the RHI accreditation process.
Services
Pre-Feasibility & Heat Mapping, Detailed Feasibility, Detailed Design & Specification, Procurement Support, Client Engineer, RHI Accreditation.
Solution
A centralised energy centre housing two 500 kW biomass woodchip boilers and 35,000 litres of thermal storage was designed to supply two separate heat network zones - one serving 26 village buildings including the hotel, the other serving the castle and surrounding buildings - with two oil boilers providing backup and auxiliary heat. The 50 m elevation change across the site required particularly careful hydraulic design and controls strategy to ensure efficient heat distribution across both zones while maintaining the historic character of this architecturally significant site throughout.