Our story
The National Cycling Centre is a multipurpose cycling venue in Manchester. It includes an Olympic-standard indoor velodrome, a BMX arena and outdoor mountain bike trials. The centre has been home to British Cycling since 1994 and the five time Tour de France-winning UCI ProTeam Ineos Grenadiers and formerly known as Team Sky between 2010 and 2019. The Manchester Velodrome has been cited as the major catalyst for Britain's successes in track and road cycling and has been described by Cycling Weekly as the "beating heart of British Cycling's ascension to the top of world cycling".
Manchester City Council committed to investing in a range of energy efficiency measures at the National Cycling Centre including fabric improvements, LED lighting replacements and the removal of gas heating through the installation of air source heat pumps.
The size of the complex along with the long operation hours mean it consumes (and will continue to consume) a significant amount of electricity. As a result, we were keen to explore opportunities for on-site renewable generation, to accelerate the decarbonisation of the building ahead of decarbonisation of the grid.
Working in partnership with Energy Systems Catapult and other Greater Manchester Local Authorities (Rochdale, Salford, Stockport and Wigan), we secured £8.6m of match funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Unlocking Clean Energy in Greater Manchester (UCEGM) was a pioneering project that delivered a number of renewable schemes across the city region and create a blueprint that can be replicated in other regions across the UK aiming to reduce their carbon emissions.
In total UCEGM will see £17.2m invested across Greater Manchester, with £2.1m being invested in the delivery of 900 kWp of solar car ports at the National Cycling Centre.
In addition to the decarbonisation benefits of the solar car ports, the project supported a number of our social value objectives. In collaboration with Skills Construction Centre, we delivered a construction taster day aimed at hard-to-reach groups, including NEETs.
We kept CO2 emissions low by using a supply chain and employees based in Greater Manchester and 98% of the waste created was diverted from landfill. The solar car ports project won the Northwest Construction Hub (NWCH) Framework Project of the Year 2024 (for smaller sized projects).
Our advice
Working in a busy, public-facing environment right next to the National Cycling Centre, it was important to minimise disruption and ensure ‘business as usual’ for all building users and key stakeholders. The project was lucky in that there are two separate car parks on site that enable this approach, sectioning a smaller car park to maintain access to a busy building.
It's important to maintain focus on the end user and deal with design changes to meet their needs. For example, as users of the carpark often have bicycles on roof racks, the carports were built with a 3.5m clearance height and prominent signage to prevent accidental damage to often high specification bicycles.
Normally, we would seek to locate solar inverters inside a building’s plant room so they are secure and easy to maintain. However due to the highly utilised velodrome, there was no space available internally, so a ventilated cage was installed outside with a secure fence around.
Our Changeprint
Our Changeprint can be measured by the amount of renewable energy produced (900 kWp); tonnes of CO2 saved per year (240 tonnes); the waste recovered during construction (95% of waste was diverted from landfill); and the example set for designing and constructing parking amenities that generate on-site renewable energy.
