Luxury apartments to generate their own power

A development of two luxury apartment blocks near London’s Canary Wharf will use state of the art technologies to generate their own heat and electricity on site.

The Pan Peninsular development will house 762 luxury apartments, a private cinema, and a riverside restaurant. The total cost of the development, to be completed in 2009, is £27 million. The tower blocks will be Britain’s tallest residential building.

The tower blocks will use a combined heat and power (CHP) system to generate their own power, saving residents money on energy bills. The CHP system recovers heat created in the electricity generation process, which will be used to provide heating and hot water for the building.

The CHP system in the development will save an estimated 207 tonnes of emissions every year. Manchester-based manufacturers of the technology, Ener-g Combined Power, say that this is equivalent to a 79 hectare forest.

Simon Walsh, development director at Haydon Mechanical and Electrical, who will be installing the technology, said: “Pan Peninsular will make a substantial and visible contribution to Ken Livingstone’s green London programme while representing a beacon of sustainability for the whole country.

“The CHP system represents a small fraction of the overall building costs, yet this adds tremendous value by creating significant energy savings and considerable environmental benefits.”

According the the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, new buildings with a total floor area of 1000 square metres are required to consider the benefits of systems such as CHP.