Power Hall: Andrew Law Gallery, Manchester Science and Industry Museum

Within the Power Hall, new heating, lighting, glazing and roof insulation has further reduced energy consumption and improved the visitor experience by removing and concealing clumsy modern interventions. A new control system allows the energy and carbon data to be accumulated and analysed, so we can look for opportunities to further reduce carbon emissions and running costs. 

Overall, we expect to reduce the carbon emissions by around 515 tonnes of CO₂ per year. 

The Power Hall tells the history of Manchester and its part in the industrial revolution, and our aim has been to tell the story of the 'green industrial revolution', illustrating the route to transition to a low-carbon future. 

The SIM Power Hall first opened to the public in 1983, with a working display of 18th and 19th century mill and factory machinery, powered by a gas-fired steam boiler. Central to our design is a new 780kW electric steam boiler that provides steam to power powers seven of the historic engines, the earliest from 1864, via a high pressure and low pressure circuits. With no available technical data for the 19th-century machinery, we had to estimate the steam consumption and condensate production of the engines during startup and steady running. 

The steam condenses before it returns to the boiler, providing abundant heat to recover and reuse. In the past, this process was run by gas and the heat went to waste, but now heat exchangers capture energy from the steam to heat the Power Hall and the 1830 Warehouse (via heaters on a separate loop, concealed under the historic railway platforms). When the historic machines aren't running and the steam system isn't in use, a water source heat pump warms the museum buildings. 

The water source heat network is over 800m in length, and includes 401m of borehole pipework and an additional 407m of steam pipework in the power hall. In the museum's upper yard, two 80m deep extraction boreholes are used for heat extraction and rejection from the steam condensing process. A borehole has also replaced the noisy and unsightly cooling towers.