Birmingham Women’s & Children’s Hospital

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust runs the Birmingham Women’s Hospital (located adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the University of Birmingham) and the Birmingham Children’s Hospital (located in Birmingham city centre), and as part of a drive to provide more sustainable decarbonised energy sources for these sites, has invested heavily in geothermal power.

On the back of other successful geothermal projects, such as that at Colchester Northern Gateway, WJ were brought on board by Dalkia to install and test new geothermal boreholes at both of these sites.

At the Birmingham Children’s Hospital site a total of 6no boreholes were installed to 195m depth (some of the deepest boreholes ever drilled by WJ UK) through made ground, superficial deposits, the Sherwood Sandstone group and the Warwickshire group. Upon completion of these boreholes individual pumping tests were undertaken on each well with flows up to 20l/s during the Step Test and 15l/s during the Constant Rate Tests (which was in line with a similar project at the nearby Library of Birmingham). Upon conclusion of the individual well tests, final operation tests were undertaken by connection the abstraction well and discharging in to the injection well.

At the Birmingham Women’s Hospital site, a total of 8no boreholes were installed, through similar geology to that observed at the Children’s Hospital site. A similar testing regime was also undertaken at the Women’s Hospital site.

The purposes of these tests was to investigation the feasibility of utilising ground source heat pumping systems for both hospitals, with the data collected confirming that it was, indeed, an option.

• LOCATION: Birmingham

• CLIENT: Dalkia