Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

Major infrastructure works for District General Hospital.

This £200m project at Little France situated on the outskirts of Edinburgh comprised of a new hospital block (approx. 120,000m²) with 27 operating theatres, five of which are ultra clean, 897 beds, maternity unit, HSDU and hospital laboratory block and also included the University of Edinburgh Medical School comprising approximately 11,000m² of combined laboratory and academic accommodation.

The services installations include 28MW output dual fuel MTHW boiler plant, 1MW (electrical) gas fired CHP plant, 6MW electrical standby generation, 103No. separate air handling systems, 4.4MW air cooled chilling plants, 4No. steam generation plants, 6No. HV/LV substations, 2No. Oxygen VIE plants, 5000 litres medical air compressor plant and 7000 litre medical vacuum plant.

The medium temperature hot water (MTHW) for the site is generated centrally via 4No. high efficiency dual fuel fully modulating 3-pass boilers supplemented by heat injection from a gas fired CHP plant. Heat is distributed to the hospital and university via 3No. inverter controlled variable volume distribution circuits accommodated within subterranean builders ducts. Terminal heat stations convert the MTHW to low temperature hot water (LTHW) via dual plate heat exchangers to meet the building heat loads white air handling plant and domestic hot water (DHW) plant are served directly by the MTHW. The MTHW to LTHW plate heat exchangers and DHW generation plant are controlled utilising 2-port control valves acting in combination with automatic pressure regulation valves to maintain control authority while minimising distribution electrical power consumption.

The project broke new ground in the UK construction industry being one of the first large PFI projects and during the construction phase it was the largest construction site in Europe.