ATU tenders Galway campus energy retrofit

Atlantic Technological University has opened a construction tender for a 4,425m² energy retrofit at its Galway City campus, combining improvements to the building envelope with heating, ventilation, lighting, and controls rather than treating decarbonisation as a standalone plant replacement.

Atlantic Technological University is seeking a works contractor and Project Supervisor Construction Stage for the Dublin Road project under the Energy Efficiency and Decarbonisation Pathfinder Programme. The works are being supported through Ireland’s higher-education decarbonisation framework.

The tender covers part of the original campus building dating from 1972, a reinforced-concrete framed structure currently served by the site’s central heating system and a combination of natural and mechanical ventilation.

That age and construction form make the project representative of a much wider public-estate challenge. Universities, hospitals, offices, and civic buildings constructed during the second half of the twentieth century often remain structurally useful but perform poorly against modern energy standards.

The specified works include building-fabric improvements, roof replacement, window replacement, ventilation upgrades, lighting and control improvements, and installation of a medium-temperature air-source heat pump. Existing gas boilers will remain available for peak demand and backup rather than being removed completely.

The hybrid heating arrangement is technically significant. Older institutional buildings can have high peak heating loads and distribution systems designed around water temperatures that are less favourable to conventional low-temperature heat pumps.

Retaining boilers for exceptional demand allows the new heat-pump system to address a larger proportion of routine heating without being sized around the most severe operating condition. It can also provide resilience during maintenance, unusually cold weather, or periods when the existing building requires more heat than the electrified system can efficiently provide.

The approach only works properly if the building envelope improves at the same time. A heat pump installed into an inefficient structure still has to replace every unit of heat lost through poorly insulated roofs, glazing, walls, uncontrolled ventilation, and air leakage.

Roof and window works therefore form part of the heating strategy rather than a separate architectural package. Reducing demand lowers the output required from the new plant, while improved controls can prevent energy savings from being lost through unnecessary operation.

The project is targeting a minimum B1 Building Energy Rating, alongside reductions in carbon emissions and improvements to occupant comfort. Achieving that level in a building dating from the early 1970s requires coordinated intervention across several construction disciplines.

Window replacement affects airtightness, thermal bridging, solar gain, internal comfort, and interfaces with the existing concrete frame. Roof works must improve thermal performance while accommodating drainage and existing services, while ventilation upgrades have to balance energy efficiency against the air-quality requirements of teaching and staff spaces.

Lighting and controls introduce a substantial electrical component. Modern control systems can reduce unnecessary operating hours and allow heating, ventilation, and lighting to respond more accurately to occupancy, but only where sensors, control sequences, commissioning, and facilities-management practices work together.

The retained gas boilers add another layer to that controls strategy. The heat pump and boilers will need to be sequenced so the lower-carbon plant carries the appropriate base load while conventional boilers operate only when conditions justify them.

Poor sequencing would undermine much of the intended benefit. A hybrid system that allows boilers to run routinely when the heat pump could meet demand may perform little better than the installation it replaced, regardless of the efficiency ratings specified for individual components.

Universities also present particular construction-management constraints because buildings cannot always be treated as isolated sites. Teaching, research, examinations, staff access, neighbouring facilities, and campus circulation may continue around the works, increasing the importance of phasing, isolations, temporary routes, noise management, and safe segregation.

The requirement for a Project Supervisor Construction Stage reflects the number of interfaces involved. Roof works, façade alterations, glazing, mechanical systems, electrical systems, heating plant, controls, ventilation, and occupied-campus considerations all have to be coordinated within one delivery programme.

Retrofit programmes of this type are becoming a larger part of the construction market as public estates move beyond quick-return measures such as LED replacements and simple control upgrades. Deeper carbon reductions require intervention in the physical building and its mechanical and electrical systems, pushing projects towards major refurbishment rather than routine maintenance.

The decision to retain existing boilers also reflects the practical nature of that transition. Full electrification remains an objective across many estates, but a staged system can deliver substantial operational change where fabric condition, electrical capacity, heat emitters, or peak loads make an immediate all-electric conversion uneconomic or technically awkward.

The Galway project will therefore be judged on more than the installation of visible new equipment. Its success will depend on lower heating demand, correct sequencing of new and retained plant, reliable ventilation, effective controls, and the ability of a 1972 building to operate at a substantially better energy standard without being replaced.