Energy Management: Scarthingmoor Lodge

Demands of the property and the issues needing to be resolved:

The properties demands that were not being fulfilled well, were the following; central heating, domestic hot water, electrical demand and finally the heating of an outdoor open air swimming pool of 130,000 litres capacity. All these demands were managed by individual controls that did not interface with each other, as such making for a very inefficient system. In fact the main reason for the enquiry came from the customer experiencing regular cold showers. The existing heating and energy plant was made up of an 18kW PV array alongside a 35kW biomass boiler. Both the boiler and the array were used to heat up a couple of 1000 litre buffer tanks. The array assisted the boiler by diverting the excess energy produced to six 3kW immersion heaters split between the tanks. This stored heat was then used to fulfil the demands of the house and pool, unfortunately due to lack of control this led to the tanks regularly becoming depleted, therefore unable to cover the demands at all times.

The new system using Loxone:

Protek replaced the existing Cylon controllers, which managed the load for 6 immersion heaters, due to them being very slow at reacting to solar production. Whereas Loxone is a more powerful and dynamic solution. It has not only resolved the initial concerns making a more than capable system, but has seen some very dramatic reductions in the customers energy costs. They chose not to re-invent the system but to introduce the capability of Loxone. The same array and boiler provide the energy, with Loxone using its powerful logic to control where the energy comes from and where the energy is delivered to. In fact Loxone made the system that efficient Protek introduced a Sonnen Battery to capture the excess generation helping reduce the electrical demand during the night.

Products control:

– Emma Immersion throttle

– Effecta Komplett II biomass boiler

– Multiple heating port values and pumps

– ABB inverters

The numbers:

The work was completed during March 2022, using only two quarters worth of bills in comparison to the previous years, the results are truly unbelievable during this time the array has produced 8260 kWh more energy, providing an extra income of £1296. There has been a reduction in pellet usage by 10 tonnes, saving £4724 and the demand from the grid has decreased by 3973 kWh, making for a saving of £1120.

These savings only grew over winter, especially due to the current challenging energy crisis.

Our thoughts:

The way that Protek has used Loxone as a solution in this installation is a fantastic example of how it can bring various third-party devices together all in the interest of saving energy and even more so, any energy that is used is done so in the most efficient way to reduce both the impact on the environment and the running costs. Loxone is arguably one of the most powerful ecosystems for energy management, with both hardware and software offerings that have been designed for impressive energy management in both residential and commercial premises. Thank you to Protek for sharing this impressive case study with us and well done on implementing such a well-performing solution!