Green Queen turns palace into powerhouse
(August 23, 2005: theaustralian.news.com.au)
LONDON: The Queen is planning to create an underground network to extract heat from the earth's natural warmth and cut energy bills at Buckingham Palace for centuries to come.She has inspired a fashion among the super-rich for drilling boreholes at their properties as the latest "green" status symbol.
Advocates include pop star Elton John, tycoon Richard Branson and billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
The Buckingham Palace system will provide a secure, free and inexhaustible energy supply from beneath the surface of the 1.6ha lake at the heart of the walled gardens. It will pump heating to the state rooms, the formal area of the palace.
Water containing a refrigerant chemical is circulated through a loop of pipework running through the lake bed and into the groundwater feeding it. The slow journey through the coils allows the liquid to absorb the surrounding heat at a constant 12C.
The Queen ordered a small trial in 2002 that drilled 122m into the chalk aquifer beneath the palace grounds to run an eco-friendly airconditioning system for a new art gallery, built at Buckingham Palace to mark her golden jubilee. The results were apparently so impressive that she is ready to take the bold step of using a new underground heating system to replace conventional sources for part of the palace.
The water-refrigerant combination that has absorbed the heat from the ground passes back up the pipe and into the palace where it goes through a compressor that "concentrates" the latent energy, raising the temperature of the liquid to 55C-60C.
It then passes through metal plates in contact with water that is used for the taps, radiators and underfloor heating.
The liquid can also be decompressed so that instead of generating heat, it can provide cool air for airconditioning. The venture is the most radical among a wide range of environmentally conscious schemes adopted by the royal household in recent years.
The Queen's state cars have been switched to liquid petroleum gas, as has the taxi used by Prince Philip to drive anonymously around London.
The Buckingham Palace scheme will cost up to pound stg. 50,000 ($120,000), but is expected to pay for itself in three to seven years. It could then provide free heat energy for a century with almost no maintenance.
(The Sunday Times)
(August 23, 2005: theaustralian.news.com.au)
LONDON: The Queen is planning to create an underground network to extract heat from the earth's natural warmth and cut energy bills at Buckingham Palace for centuries to come.She has inspired a fashion among the super-rich for drilling boreholes at their properties as the latest "green" status symbol.
Advocates include pop star Elton John, tycoon Richard Branson and billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
The Buckingham Palace system will provide a secure, free and inexhaustible energy supply from beneath the surface of the 1.6ha lake at the heart of the walled gardens. It will pump heating to the state rooms, the formal area of the palace.
Water containing a refrigerant chemical is circulated through a loop of pipework running through the lake bed and into the groundwater feeding it. The slow journey through the coils allows the liquid to absorb the surrounding heat at a constant 12C.
The Queen ordered a small trial in 2002 that drilled 122m into the chalk aquifer beneath the palace grounds to run an eco-friendly airconditioning system for a new art gallery, built at Buckingham Palace to mark her golden jubilee. The results were apparently so impressive that she is ready to take the bold step of using a new underground heating system to replace conventional sources for part of the palace.
The water-refrigerant combination that has absorbed the heat from the ground passes back up the pipe and into the palace where it goes through a compressor that "concentrates" the latent energy, raising the temperature of the liquid to 55C-60C.
It then passes through metal plates in contact with water that is used for the taps, radiators and underfloor heating.
The liquid can also be decompressed so that instead of generating heat, it can provide cool air for airconditioning. The venture is the most radical among a wide range of environmentally conscious schemes adopted by the royal household in recent years.
The Queen's state cars have been switched to liquid petroleum gas, as has the taxi used by Prince Philip to drive anonymously around London.
The Buckingham Palace scheme will cost up to pound stg. 50,000 ($120,000), but is expected to pay for itself in three to seven years. It could then provide free heat energy for a century with almost no maintenance.
(The Sunday Times)
posted by Anthony Stoddart @ 6:36 AM
1 Comments:
At Fri Aug 26, 10:34:00 AM,
Anthony Stoddart said…
As a loyal subject of Her Majesty's, I should be saying she did it for the environment. I admit, though, that the prospect of cutting bills at the Palace would have been a primary reason for such a decision. The article indicates that she will end up saving a lot of money.
The Royal Family used to be criticised a lot for their extravagent spending (particularly Prince Charles). However, Buckingham Palace now publicises how much the Royals spend and on what. The expenditure decreases significantly every year.
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