The publicly owned Westgate Leisure Centre in Chichester is a multi-function gym and health facility in Southeast England. The center has a 33 meter, 6-lane swimming pool, leisure pool, and a children’s play area. It also has a large gym, sports hall, sauna, and skate park.

The thermal demand for heating the swimming pool, providing hot shower facilities led the Chichester District Council to investigate alternatives to natural gas while still meeting energy demand, providing an effective hedge against volatile energy markets and simultaneously decarbonizing the leisure center’s heating demand.

After an initial feasibility study, a modern solar thermal system using Naked Energy’s VirtuHOT tubes was identified as the best solution, alongside traditional PV, heat pumps, and CHP units.

The primary source of pool heating comes from 420 VirtuHOT solar thermal collectors, covering an area of 3,390 square feet. A sophisticated system design integrates these collectors with PV panels, two air source heat pumps, and a combined heat and power (CHP) unit on-site.