Engie has won a 20-year contract worth £2.8 million at Solent University's new sports complex, which has been connected to Southampton Geothermal Heating Company's (SGHC) pioneering district energy scheme.
The SGHC is a working partnership between Engie and Southampton City Council that launched more than 30 years ago. The scheme supplies heat, chilled water and electricity to commercial and residential energy users across Southampton - currently serving a 2-kilometre radius of the energy centre.
Solent University has tasked Engie with the implementation of a new heating connection that would link up existing assets, as well as a new state-of-the-art sports centre.
The SGHC currently saves about 10,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year using heat from a large-scale combined heat and power (CHP) plant, supplemented by geothermal energy and conventional boilers.
The university required a new district heating connection with a substation to provide heating and domestic hot water for the new facilities with a predicted annual heating consumption of 620 megawatt hours a year and a contractual peak load of 875 kilowatts, which Engie is poised to deliver through the connection to SGHC.
About 150 metres of pre-insulated district heating steel pipework were installed adjacent to the Southampton Solent University building on East Park Terrace, Southampton.
Andrew Hart, managing director for Engie's urban energy business, said: "We have adopted an incredibly flexible approach to our service delivery to ensure we can continue making connections to the scheme and extend this unique solution. We look forward to working with our partners in the council, as well as the university over the next 20 years to deliver a first-rate service for people and businesses in the region."
Paul Colbran, chief information and infrastructure officer at Solent University, said: "Solent is undergoing a £100 million estate redevelopment programme to provide new and improve current campus facilities, and the new sports complex is just one element of that programme.
"With such a large infrastructure project and our desire to be cleaner, greener and more environmentally sustainable, the geothermal system helps us keep our emissions down and makes sense connecting with the current infrastructure already in place."
Engie said the new system is operational and is delivering heating and cooling for the sports centre and beyond.