Exchange Quay is one of the largest commercial campuses in the North West. Now one of its most iconic buildings is going emission free.
The upgrade to Building Eight involves replacing outdated gas boilers in the ten-storey office block with air source heat pumps. This brings the property to Energy Performance Certificate [EPC] rating B, in line with the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards [MEES], which specifies all offices must reach grade C or higher by 2027.
Tillet Asset Management commissioned this element of the work from Mitsubishi Electric, part of the landlord’s long term plan to decarbonise it’s entire portfolio. Meanwhile, air conditioning contractor Austin Broady was called in to install a system which reduces emissions and running costs.
‘One of the most important things for our tenants now is their credentials in terms of carbon emissions, energy and social governance,’ said Les Lang, Director at Tillam. ‘So, our challenge is how we can upgrade our buildings to reduce their energy use and carbon footprint, without disturbing or decanting existing tenants.’
Built in the 1980s, Exchange Quay is a landmark estate situated within Salford Quays, but now in need of extensive improvements across its 10 individual buildings to meet new energy and environmental standards. This stage of the update has provided a blueprint for delivering significant carbon savings without completely replacing the heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment. It has already passed its first real world test during winter 2024-25, one of the coldest to hit Manchester in decades.
‘The project has been really successful, as we’ve just had a very cold winter, the coldest for ten years,’ added Lang. ‘Now we’ve had that experience, and the system has worked perfectly, we are in a position where the gas will be removed from the building.’
‘We are now looking at other buildings in other parts of the country, and we are bringing landlords to this site to show them what we’ve done,’ added Mark Broady, Managing Director at Austin Broady. ‘We’re showing them our design and how we reached the solution, and they’re now sufficiently confident to roll this sort of project out in their buildings.’
Image / Video: Mitsubishi Electric
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