Wye Valley Hospital

The Challenge

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Wye Valley Hospital is undergoing a major low-carbon upgrade across its energy centre and ten associated plant rooms, bringing together electrode boilers, air source heat pumps, water-to-water heat pumps, and critical clinical loads on a single, intelligent platform. The site needed a unified controls and communications solution – spanning MCC panels, fibre, and supervisor – that could standardise control across multiple plantrooms, support complex sequencing, and give the client clear visibility from a central energy centre.

With multiple stakeholders, diverse equipment, and strict healthcare expectations, the project demanded a partner able to design, build, and commission an end‑to‑end controls architecture – not just a panel or a program.

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What We Are Delivering

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Link Energy Services is currently delivering a full-stack controls and networking solution for Wye Valley Hospital, from field devices through to the IoT-enabled supervisor.

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Smart MCC Panels & Controls Design

• Design, manufacture, and supply Form 2 Type 2 MCC panels for the energy centre and ten plant rooms, built to hospital and Centrica specifications.

• Develop the full control system design and logic directly from the project Description of Operation, including points lists and network registers.

• Deploy Niagara 4 Tridium JACE 8000 and iSMA MAC controllers, combined with safety relays and managed Ethernet switching, to create a robust, expandable controls platform.

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End-to-End Connectivity & Supervisor

• Design, install, and commission an N+1 fibre optic backbone, networking all remote plant rooms back to the main energy centre supervisor.

• Install data cabinets, patch panels, fibre and copper patch leads, and containment to deliver a resilient, hospital‑grade controls network.

• Design, develop, install, and commission the central system supervisor in line with the Centrica specification, providing a single pane of glass for all plantrooms.

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Controls Software & Bench Testing

• Develop the control strategy software on the Tridium / Niagara N4 platform, with a structured I/O points list and COMs/register mapping.

• Create PX-style graphical HMI displays as clear visual representations of each plant room and the energy centre.

• Bench test control logic and configurations prior to JACE deployment, including communications, I/O, equipment points, pump control, heat and electricity meter integration, and sequence-by-sequence functional tests.

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Commissioning, SAT & Handover

• Install all controls cabling as per the points list and perform full point-to-point testing across the energy centre and plantrooms.

• Carry out pre‑commissioning (power checks, insulation/earth leakage tests, wiring reviews, controller commissioning, sensor initialisation, pump rotation tests) to de-risk live commissioning.

• Deliver on-site commissioning in line with CIBSE TM51:2013, including flow verification, control validation versus Des Ops, meter testing, and final equipment sign-off.

• Prepare ATP and Site Acceptance Testing documentation, SAT records, and O&M manuals to support a clean, auditable handover.

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Key Technical Highlights

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• Multi-plantroom controls project: energy centre plus ten plantrooms including mortuary, age care, pathology, ITU, theatres, wards, and main hospital plantrooms.

• Mixed technology stack including electrode boilers, ASHPs, W2W heat pumps, circulation pumps, pressurisation units, Kamstrup Multical 603 heat meters, temperature and pressure sensors, motorised valves, refrigerant leak detection, and destratification equipment.

• Niagara 4 JACE 8000 and iSMA MAC controllers providing open, scalable control with future‑proof integration capability.

• N+1 fibre optic network connecting all plant rooms to a central supervisor, ensuring resilience and high‑availability communications.

• Commissioning approach aligned with CIBSE TM51:2013, supported by structured ATP, SAT, and full documentation.

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Impact (So Far)

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✓ Standardised Controls Across the Estate: The project is creating a common controls architecture across ten plant rooms and the energy centre, making operation, support, and optimisation far more consistent.

✓ Ready for Data-Driven Management: With an IoT-ready supervisor, fibre backbone, and integrated metering, the hospital will be able to view, analyse, and optimise plant performance from a single interface.

✓ Designed for Healthcare Resilience: N+1 fibre, bench-tested logic, and staged pre‑commissioning all support reliable operation in a live clinical environment.

✓ Strong Foundation for Net Zero: By tightly controlling and monitoring heat pumps, electrode boilers and distribution systems, the scheme puts the hospital on a stronger footing for carbon and energy reduction.

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