Living the high life

What retrofitting of three tower blocks on the Edward Woods estate

Who arm’s-length management organisation Hammersmith & Fulham Homes and ECD architects

Cost £13.5 million for the whole project

How long 82 weeks, starting onsite in winter 2009

If you walk out of the Westfield Shopping centre in White City, you’re greeted with the sight of three 24-storey 1960s tower blocks - nothing unusual for London. But in two years’ time, you will be clutching your purchases and be gazing at a trio of freshly-clad high-rises, each topped with a pair of wind turbines.

An exemplar project is being hatched in west London - although one which probably won’t get much coverage on the flash property pages. The rest of the Edward Woods estate has been overhauled over the past decade, with the three hard-to-tackle high-rises left until last.

ECD architects has been consulting with residents and working with the ALMO, Hammersmith & Fulham Homes, for the past three years. Over the next 18 months, the blocks will be getting a complete overhaul, with recladding, internal decoration and new porticos. They will emerge with a unique cluster of wind turbines on the roof and the largest set of photovoltaics in London.

Powering up

Hammersmith & Fulham Homes was keen to use renewable energy in the retrofit. Putting wind turbines in an urban area may seem bold but, at 80 metres above ground, they should catch the winds over London. The team did tests in a wind tunnel at the Building Research Establishment Park and looked at data from nearby Heathrow airport. The wind turbines are nine metres high, 6 kilowatt and were made in Scotland by Proven.

In addition to the turbines on each tower, there will be 318 photovoltaic panels providing 50 kilowatts of peak energy. The panels are expected to generate 84,390 kilowatts per year across all three towers, with each turbine adding 10,070 kilowatts per year. This energy will power all the communal energy needs: lifts, CCTV, lighting and the alarm system. The payback for the PVs is 25 years and 14 years for the wind turbines, without grant feed-in or rising energy prices accounted for.

High performance

Much of the outside of the blocks will be covered in an insulated render system, Rockshield from Rockwool, which also helps with sound-insulation.

SAP analysis showed that the two and one-bed flats in the blocks performed pretty well, as they had recently been fitted with condensing boilers and double-glazing - their SAP rating was in the low 80s. The studio flats did much worse, scoring in the 30s, because they still have storage heaters. Putting in new boilers should bring them into the 80s.

Empty space

At the top of each tower block is a little-used communal garden and an abandoned common room. These will be transformed into four two-bedroom flats for market sale, which will help fund the rest of the work.

As they can’t be plugged into the gas network, they will be run on electricity via an air source heat pump, be highly-insulated to passivhaus standards and use heat recovery to reuse waste heat. On the ground floor, windowless storage space will be given a new lease of life as offices for the ALMO and local charities.

Funding

As well as the money generated from the sale of the 12 new penthouse flats, the team successfully applied for grant funding. Fifty per cent of the million pound cost of the PVs and the wind turbines came from the low carbon buildings programme phase two. A further £5.2 million came from the London Development Agency Targeted Funding Stream grant, and £250,000 was paid by British Gas under the CERT funding scheme. The remainder is coming from the ALMO’s existing regeneration funding.

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