Pre-commissioning clean of large diameter district heating network

Eneteq Services has installed over 4,000m of district heating transmission pipes as part of the ongoing redevelopment at Wembley Park. They have established the underground heating mains for the entire Wembley Park redevelopment in several phases between 2018 and 2021.

These pipes transfer heat from the purpose-built Combined Heat & Power (CHP) plant to each of the 17 residential blocks for domestic and water heating use. This District Heating (DH) network represents a considerable saving of carbon compared to the traditional model of each residential unit producing its heat and hot water. Before the transmission pipes can be used, they must be carefully cleaned to remove any particulate matter such as swarf or construction residues which could damage the heat exchangers or shorten the life of the pipework.

The traditional method for cleaning these systems is dynamic flushing with side stream filtration, which requires pumping water and chemicals through the network at high velocity for up to two weeks.

With Ice Pigging™, it is possible to carry out a pre-commissioning clean on a large area of DH pipework in a single day. It can easily be applied using existing fill and drain vents on the network and requires no harmful chemicals.

Eneteq was an early adopter of Ice PiggingTM in the DH sector, with SUEZ providing Ice Pigging™ services for commissioning projects since 2017. Given the high status of the Wembley project and the time constraints associated with such a largescale redevelopment, Eneteq approached SUEZ to clean the entire underground transmission network.

Each phase was cleaned successfully using SUEZ’s self-contained Ice Pigging™ equipment. Along with the associated time savings of Ice Pigging™, it eliminated the need to hire in large, expensive pumps that would otherwise be required to flush pipes of this diameter.