Air-source heat pumps maintain tropical conditions
8th December 2024
UK: Mitsubishi Electric air-source heat pumps are providing the tropical conditions for the butterfly house at Chester Zoo.
A world-leading conservation and education charity, Chester Zoo has developed ambitious sustainability plans that will help the zoo reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero.
As part of those plans, the zoo has installed seven Ecodan heat pumps to work in a cascade system in the 471m2 purpose-built butterfly house. It is home to an array of butterflies, stream frogs, lizards and millipedes, mainly from South America and Southeast Asia. These species require a very warm environment, kept between 22°C and 25°C, whatever the weather outside in Cheshire.
The habitat was previously heated with an LPG heating system.
“Our mission is to prevent extinction and raise awareness of conservation and environmental challenges around the world, so we know that we can’t be part of the problem that we’re trying to solve,” explained Jennifer Kelly, Chester Zoo’s head of sustainability. “That’s why we are looking to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel heating across our site, and why we are partnering with Mitsubishi Electric.”
“The zoo has a brilliant M&E project team who we have worked with to look at how we could apply heat pumps to the butterfly habitat,” added net zero carbon design manager Chris Newman. “It’s part of the longer-term process of decarbonising as much of the zoo as possible.”
Chester Zoo is aiming to be carbon net zero in its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 and carbon net zero in its scope 3 emissions by 2050 at the latest.
