The Pirbright Institute

The Pirbright Institute undertakes research into viral diseases in livestock and is part way through a £250m programme.

A gas supply was needed to new buildings onsite, which would require a branch saddle connection to the gas main, laying 3,100m of medium pressure pipe and the installation of a twin-stream rotary meter.

Programme

We were awarded the gas infrastructure project by the Institute’s energy supplier through the Crown Commercial Services framework agreement supplied by Corona Energy. The special dispensation given by the network operator enabled us to get onsite quickly, completing a digital survey and uploading it in real time.

An ancillary pressure agreement was negotiated with the adopting network, because the site’s pressure requirements were above the guaranteed pressure levels — this would usually be arranged by the customer or via the gas supplier.

We completed a branch connection to the mains supply and laid over 3,100 meters of medium pressure pipe to the Institute, which required extensive use of horizontal directional drilling to cross a number of bridges and minimise road closures. Once the pipe had been laid, it was connected to a new 102M meter rig on the Pirbright campus, ready for the next phase supplying gas to each new building.

Outcome

The project was completed successfully 11 weeks ahead of schedule and the Pirbright Institute received numerous messages of appreciation from local residents of the way that we engaged with the community.

“The feedback I’ve had from the local community has been very generous — they’ve said that the team has been courteous and polite and have gone out of their way to ease the transition as the work has been done. So we really couldn’t have asked for better,” said Denise Pate, Senior Project Manager at The Pirbright Institute

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