District Heating & Cooling

Untangling a district energy contract and the costs.

A Grade-A 48,000 sq ft performing arts campus in Woking, plugged into Thameswey's district heating and cooling system. A complex billing system and a unique client, landlord and energy supplier relationship. KEES brought them around one tracker and one set of solutions.

Industry
Education · Performing arts
Location
Woking
Project
District energy review
Facility
48,000 sq ft Grade-A

Projected savings

Calculated from controls & contract review · Annual basis
15%
Cost · % of total yearly spend

Cost reduction available through contract review and revised control strategy.

68.4kkWh
Energy · per year

Heat & cooling demand reduction from setpoint and scheduling changes.

5.4tCO₂e
Carbon · per year

District system is already low-carbon -savings come from running less of it, smarter.

01 · The Challenge

Four parties, one building, no shared view of the system

The campus was being heated and cooled by a system nobody fully owned the running of.

Italia Conti's Woking building takes heat and chilled water from the Thameswey district network. The interface, a heat exchanger pair on the primary side, secondary loops feeding studios, classrooms and a black-box theatre, sat across a contractual seam between the energy company, the developer, the FM contractor and the school.

The bills system was complex: capacity charges for plant the building couldn't physically draw. Setpoints were chasing each other. Pumps were running flat out outside teaching hours. And nobody could agree whose problem it was.

KEES was brought in to do something deceptively simple, get everyone around one table, with one set of numbers, and a list of solutions ranked by who had to do what.

02 · The System

A district loop, four parties, and one shared tracker.

Primary networkSecondary & buildingStakeholders
Italia Conti · district interface · simplifiedPRIMARY 90/65°C — SECONDARY 70/45°CPRIMARY · ThamesweyRETURN · 65°CHEATEXCHANGERPStudios · 220 kWTheatre · 140 kWClassrooms · 95 kWCooling · 180 kWCapacity mismatchPump 24/7
Stakeholders on the tracker

Thameswey Energy

District network operator  primary side metering & capacity charges.

Energy Co.

Italia Conti

Building occupier - operational schedule, comfort, billing accountability.

Client

FM contractor

Day-to-day BMS, pumps, valves & setpoints on the secondary side.

FM

Building owner

Capacity decisions on the heat exchanger and long-term capex.

Landlord
Source · BMS export · Thameswey settlement data · 2025Tracker · 14 actions · 4 ownersStatus · 11 / 14 closed

Capacity mismatch

Heat exchanger primary rated above what the secondary could ever consume - capacity charge being paid for headroom that wasn't usable.

Pumps running 24/7

Secondary circulators didn't follow occupancy. Out-of-hours flow rate identical to school day. BMS recommissioned.

Studios & theatre profiled

Independent zones with very different schedules - once profiled separately, comfort improved and runtime dropped.

03 · Key Findings

Six themes - spread across four owners.

F.01

Heat exchanger capacity charge

Contracted primary capacity exceeded secondary peak by ~38%. Renegotiation case prepared with operator.

F.02

Secondary pump scheduling

Variable-speed pumps in fixed mode 24/7. Linked to occupancy schedule - instant runtime saving.

F.03

Setpoint conflicts (heat vs cool)

Heating and cooling set points overlapped in shoulder seasons - system fighting itself in studios.

F.04

Theatre standalone profile

Black-box theatre runs to a different schedule than teaching spaces. Now zoned and scheduled independently.

F.05

Billing transparency

Settlement data made readable for the school's finance team, no more black-box invoices.

F.06

Roles & responsibilities

RACI matrix produced across the four parties. The next time something drifts, the owner is named.

04 · The KEES Approach

Get the four parties in one room. Stay until the tracker is closed.

District energy projects fail at the seams between parties, not in the kit. We work the seams, the contract, the BMS, the schedules and we hold the tracker until the actions are owned and dated.

STEP 01

Read the contract first

Capacity charges, settlement formula and termination clauses. What's actually being paid for, not what's assumed.

STEP 02

Pull every BMS & settlement export

Twelve months of trends from the BMS, twelve months of settlement data from the operator. Reconcile.

STEP 03

Walk the plant rooms with FM

The diagram never matches reality. Verify primary/secondary kit, valving, sensor locations and current setpoints in person.

STEP 04

Run the four-party workshop

One room, one tracker, one set of numbers. Each finding gets an owner and a date,  no abstaining.

STEP 05

Stay until the tracker is closed

Weekly check-ins until 11/14 actions closed. The remaining three sit on a longer capex cycle, with funding routed.

05 · Timeline

Ten weeks from kick-off to first savings.

Total elapsed · 10 weeks · 2025
Wk 0 · BriefContract pullAll four parties to a kick-off; data  contract requested.
Wk 3 · WalkPlant roomsPrimary & secondary verified on site with FM.
Wk 6 · WorkshopTracker live14 actions agreed across four owners. RACI signed.
Wk 10 · Saving11 / 14 closedPump schedule & setpoints live; capacity case submitted.
Parties aligned
4 / 4
Tracker actions closed
11 / 14
Cost saving
15%
See ESOS service
06 · Client testimonial
worked with Kiro during a detailed investigation into energy usage and system efficiency at Italia Conti.He was brought in to assess our heating, cooling and electrical infrastructure and quickly demonstrated not only technical fluency but also a strategic understanding of how operational inefficiencies impact cost, contract value, and long-term planning.
BH
Bradley Hawkins
FRSA, Co-Principal & Chief Operating Officer · Italia Conti  
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