The new V&A Museum of Design, which opened in Dundee in September 2018, is dedicated to telling the extraordinary story of Scottish design. This new design museum is appropriately housed in a stunning new building by Kengo Kuma which is heated and cooled by ground source heat pumps.
A low and zero carbon technologies study was undertaken in 2011 as part of the project’s obligation to identify the most appropriate form of renewable energy for the 8,000m² building and ground source was identified as the optimum solution.
The heat pumps provide direct renewable energy for the museum, with 800,000 kWh a year of heating and 500,000 kWh a year of cooling. Thirty 200 metre deep boreholes allow heat pumps to draw heat from the ground to provide heating in winter. In summer the heat pumps transfer excess heat from the building down to the borehole field: this not only provides efficient cooling, it also stores heat in the ground for the winter when it will be recycled back to the museum to provide heating. This building is run by the sun.