University on hunt for Energy House 2.0 contractor
The University of Salford has started the search to find potential construction partners to help deliver its £10m Energy House 2.0 project.
A partner prospectus for Energy House 2.0 was issued in December 2016, as the university’s School for the Built Environment prepared the ground to build what it described as an international test facility. Place North West understands that the university hopes to issue tender documents by the end of this year.
Substantially redesigned since the 2016 prospectus, Energy House 2.0 is now consented to be built at the Fredercik Road campus, adjacent to the Alleton Building. It will provide test facilities in an isolated, thermally controlled internal environment for full-scale residential buildings, offering a range of simulated weather conditions, with the selling point being that testing that could take years in the field can be done in a matter of weeks.
The university launched its prospectus to inform potential partners in the energy and construction sectors, funding bodies and Government of its intentions to build on the work done at the original Energy House, which was developed in the mid-2000s at the university’s Cockcroft Building, specifically aimed at the retrofit market.
The proposal is for two environmental chambers with the ability to achieve temperatures of between -20C and 40C, wind, rain, snow and simulated solar light. It is to include a sensor laboratory, a thermal laboratory, a data analysis and visualisation unit, product development space and more standard meeting facilities.
Energy House 2.0 was promoted in the 2016 brochure as the proposed centrepiece of one of the university’s industrial collaboration zones.
The notice issued via OJEU says that “this process will engage the commercial market for testing of products and entire buildings, advancing real world research which can be applied to the benefit of all”.
AECOM is providing project management, cost management, architecture and full multidisciplinary engineering services for the project.
