News
Holymoor to advise Environment Agency on Ground Source Heat
Holymoor Consultancy Limited has been appointed on two contracts to advise the Environment Agency of England & Wales on the development of policy in the field of ground source heating and cooling.
The background to this work is that the provision of ground source heating and cooling (GSHC) and England & Wales by so-called "closed loop" boreholes falls into a regulatory vacuum. As such boreholes merely abstract heat and not groundwater, they do not currently require any asbtraction licence or discharge consent from the Agency. The Agency is concerned, however, that poorly constructed boreholes may cause wastage or pollution of groundwater resources and they are thus very keen to enter a dialogue with the GSHC industry to develop codes of good practice.
While the abstraction of groundwater for use in "open loop" GSHC systems usually does require an abstraction licence from the Agency (and often also a discharge consent for the disposal of thermally spent water), there has been some lack of coherence in the interpretation of licensing policy within the Agency's regions. Holymoor has been requested to assist the Environment Agency in developing a coherent nationwide consenting policy for open loop systems.
Finally, in collaboration with JDIH Envireau, Holymoor has been carrying out generic modelling of the thermal plumes emanating from open-loop GSHC schemes under a wide variety of hydrogeological scenarios. Modelling tools employed have varied from self-programmed "stream-line analysis" analytical codes, to the finite element code FEFLOW in 3 dimensions. It is anticipated that this research work will soon be released by the Agency.
Holymoor Consultancy Ltd. starts trading !
Holymoor Consultancy Limited is proud to announce that it was registered as a limited company in England and Wales (no. 06747725) on 12th November 2008. It started trading on 1st December 2008. Full details of the registered office can be found below. David Banks is appointed the Director of the new company and continues to provide his services to the commercial market through it.
Prior to 1st December 2008, Holymoor Consultancy operated as a sole tradership (David Banks t/a Holymoor Consultancy).
Holymoor anticipates that the conversion to a limited company will be as seamless as possible from the point of view of the client. Terms of trading and prices for services will be subject to as few changes as possible and any existing agreements will be honoured.
Dave Banks continues to operate a limited sole tradership business, providing personal teaching, research and emergency aid / development services to Universities and to aid organisations. These are channelled through David Banks t/a "Holymoor GeoEnvironmental Services".
Holymoor to provide regular consultancy support to Carbon Zero Consulting
Holymoor Consultancy has recently been requested to provide a regular consultancy support service to JDIH Envireau. The main objective of this arrangement is to support JDIH's specialist renewable energy division Carbon Zero Consulting (CZC) in their rapidly expanding work load in the field of ground source heating and cooling and to ensure the highest level of technical quality in the advice and design-work provided. Holymoor will be working for JDIH largely from Holymoor's offices in Chesterfield and occasionally via CZC's office facilities in Draycott.Thermogeology
HolyMoor consultancy continues to expand activity in the field of thermogeology (ground source heating and cooling). HolyMoor continues to work closely with Geowarmth Heat Pumps Ltd. of Newcastle, providing a design consultancy service. HolyMoor has also assisted Geowarmth in developing a thermal conductivity testing service, which has been successfully implemented at numerous sites in UK and Ireland.
Holymoor has also commenced a similar thermal response test advisory and interpretation service for Kensa Heat Pumps of Cornwall, Lankelma Green Energy and Carbon Zero Consulting.
Open professional (CPD-type) short courses on the topic of ground source heating and cooling have been delivered at Chesterfield (four times), Hebburn (Tyneside), Alton (Hants.), Trondheim (Norway) and Milano (Italy) to over 30 participants at each event. Furthermore, internal training has been provided to the Environment Agency at York and Peterborough, to Bosch Thermotechnology and to AWN Consulting.
Holymoor is also currently providing a ground loop design services to Carbon Zero Consulting and to Encompas Ltd. to provide the best possible services in this field, Holymoor have recently invested in the most up-to-date version of Earth Energy Designer (EED v. 3.12) software by Blocon of Lund, Sweden and in Ground Loop Design Software (v.5) by Gaia Geothermal.
Dave Banks’ Norwegian colleague, Bjorn, samples water from the River Ona at Malii Anzas, southern Siberia (Photo by Dave Banks). Dave Banks spent three weeks in Siberia as a guest of Tomsk State University in summer 2007, in order to lecture at a seminar and to participate in field sampling of sites in the Martaiga and Kuzbas regions of southern Siberia.
Groundwater Assessment in Darfur
In September 2007, Dave Banks was requested to carry out a sector review of water supply and sanitation emergency relief work carried out by DERO in Darfur, Sudan. DERO is a consortium comprising ACT-CARITAS, the Sudanese NGO SUDO and two other Sudanese NGOs. Dave spent three weeks based in and around Nyala, with field assessments in Zalingei and Garsila. Dave’s stay culminated in the preparation of a series of recommendations for DERO’s focus in the forthcoming 2 years.
HolyMoor in Norway
In early 2008, Dave Banks spent almost 2 weeks in Trondheim, Norway. At the request of the Geological Survey of Norway and the International Association of Hydrogeologists, Dave taught a one-day course on ground source heating and cooling. He also assisted the Geological Survey of Norway with translation work, and spent time assisting researchers from the Section for Hydrogeology to prepare their research for publication.