Our borehole project comes to the front of our Children’s Hospital | News

You may have seen a few changes happening at the entrance to our Children’s Hospital over the last few weeks. Colourful new hoarding has been installed on either side of the front of the building in preparation for the commencement of borehole drilling that will be taking place from 19 April.

Back in May 2022, our Trust was awarded £53m through the ‘Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme’ to enable us to significantly reduce our carbon footprint. This includes installing state of the art, eco-friendly ground source heat pumps, as well as replacing old single-glazed windows, re-rendering and insulating exterior walls and a complete Children’s Hospital main entrance re-model.

We are working in partnership with Breathe Energy to install the heat pumps, a process which will involve drilling six deep holes at our Women’s and Children’s hospitals. The holes will descend to about 200 metres, down to an aquifer which is like an underground river. In the UK the temperature increases by about three degrees Celsius per 100 metres in depth due to geothermal gradient. This groundwater will then be pumped up from the aquifer to the heat pump where it uses this difference in temperature, with the help of refrigerant gas and a compressor, to produce heat that is used to keep our patients, visitors and colleagues warm. The water is then ultimately discharged back into the aquifer ensuring this process is sustainable.

Our latest two drilling sites are located on either side of the Children’s Hospital main entrance. So, to keep everyone safe we have fenced off the work areas. We encourage you to take a closer look at the vinyl designs that are covering the site barriers where you will find our sustainability mascot, Sandy the Sustainability Elephant, amid the colourful landscape and discover more about the decarbonisation project. You can also peek through the viewing portholes to watch the progress of the works.

Once this project is completed, we will have reduced the total carbon emissions of the Trust by around 10,000 tonnes CO₂ equivalent.

Read more about our commitment to sustainability and our net-zero carbon green plan on our dedicated webpage.