Energy With A Twist

In: Energy & Environment, Science Applied Monday Apr 27,2009

Aged 23, Henry Reily Collins has won the prestigious Worshipful Company of Ferroners’ (Ironmongers) prize at The University of Manchester, holds a Masters degree with Honours in Engineering, and is overseeing a £3 million building project praised by the Low Carbon and Energy Saving Trusts for innovative eco-friendly design.

When Henry found his prize-winning research for assessing crack damage to nuclear reactor vessels, potentially saving thousands of lives and money, was taken over by his University, his inventive mind looked around for the next project, and latched onto using new state of the art low carbon technology to convert an old silk mill into sustainable luxury apartments.

Next thing was to gain credibility for his designs, so after a lengthy and gruelling application process, his project was entered for the Low Carbon Building grant programme, up against over 100 seriously tough applicants. Henry sailed through into the final 16 along side other major corporations such as Oxford Brookes.

At Dandridge’s Mill, he is converting an old silk mill, adapting centuries-old technology, and using an Archimedean Hydro screw to generate power from the flowing mill race. The screw will generate 4KW of electricity which will be distributed to the apartments. This is all neatly designed to be backed up in the summer months, when flows are lower, by a solar PV array installed on the roof.

Lurking under the mill stream’s water surface, collector loops for a Water source Heat-pump are laid low on the river bed so they can’t be seen, but are designed to provide 100% of the underfloor heating, on-demand hot water, and “another little carbon free bonus”, according to Henry, “In summer time the system will provide under-floor cooling to lower the temperature to around 17° taking the edge off hotter days.”

Step inside each of the converted luxury apartments, and a sophisticated lighting system starts up. Henry is using light bulbs that will last 30 years before they need changing and consume a mere 7W in comparison to your every day power hungry 50W halogen. “The lighting is seriously clever stuff” tackling advanced lighting technology that has been ignored so far Henry has again been praised for “pursuing where others have given up” to really benefit from the low energy, high power LED technology available today.

Doing nothing by halves, he looked over the specs for energy saving in new buildings, and decided what they asked for was too low, so has gone for 25% above the regulations on insulation. Rainwater (of course) is channelled into the river to be turned into electricity, and the system he has put in will allow every householder to key into a home page of their own home, neatly displaying their individual energy consumption for all utilities against what has been produced by the renewable sources. “The savings will happen in front of their eyes, people need to see and feel how effective these technologies can be if we are ever going to get away from this oil crisis”

With his mobile phone playing “we’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz” – Henry firmly believes in harnessing wonders and liberating energy.