Learning legacy

Lessons learned from the London

2012 Games construction project

Reducing the Aquatics Centre’s water consumption

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) had an Olympic Park-wide target
to reduce drinking water consumption by 40 per cent (compared to 2006
industry standards). Due to the inherent nature of an aquatics centre,
reducing this demand was particularly challenging. However, the venue still
managed to achieve an overall saving of 32 per cent made up of 29 per
cent through water efficiency (pool management, low flow showers, taps
and WCs) and a further three per cent through recycling filter backwash
water for WC and urinal flushing.

Water strategy challenges for the with an alternative non-potable water

Aquatics Centre supply. This is because the demand is
An aquatics centre is an unavoidably predominantly for showering (924Ml
External view of the construction of the
water-intensive building, not only out of 1,384Ml), as shown in Figure 2, Aquatics Centre
because of the water within the pools, which requires water quality of at least
but also because of the high proportion drinking water (potable) standards.
of pool users who shower on site, often On the other hand, the Energy Centre
before and after the swim. and Eton Manor (which is another
large water consumer) both have the
The Aquatics Centre on the Park houses
potential to substitute large quantities of
a 50 metre competition pool, a 25m
their demand with non-potable water,
competition diving pool and a 50m
and hence the Aquatics Centre has the
warm-up pool. These all require regular
greatest potable water demand.
top up from evaporation losses and
use filters that need to be thoroughly Demand reduction: water efficiency
cleaned with backwash water. Through the incorporation of low
flow showers, wash hand basin
The Aquatics Centre is second only
taps and low flush WCs, it was
to the Energy Centre in terms of the
demonstrated that a potable water
amount of water consumption on the The Aquatics Centre is second only to the
saving of around 29 per cent could be
Park. As Figure 1 shows, there is little Energy Centre in terms of the amount of
achieved over the building lifespan.
opportunity to substitute this demand water consumption on the Park

2,000
Non-potable demand
Potable demand
Operational Water Footprint (ML/25 years)

Whole life water consumption (MI)

1,000 1,000
Baseline
Reduced and Substituted

500

0 0
IBC/MPC Aquatics Handball Olympic Eton Establishment Velopark CCHP WCs Urinals Hand Showers Kitchens Cleaning Filter Evaporation
Centre Arena Stadium Manor irrigation make-up basins backwash loss

Figure 1: Water consumption of projects on the Olympic Park Figure 2: Baseline demand and resultant demand for different
over 25 years water uses
The specification for these fittings
was based on the guidance from the
ODA’s ‘Implementation Guidance to
Project Teams: Water’ and met the
criteria for the ‘Reduced’ category.
Further efficiency savings were made
through improved management of the
swimming pool operation, namely
covering the pools and raising the
floors when the pools were not in use.
Covering the pools is assumed to save
around 30 per cent of evaporation
losses.
Demand reduction: substitution
Design teams for all of the permanent
venues on the Park were required to
undertake feasibility studies for non-
potable water options for their venue.
Two options for non-potable supply at
the Aquatics Centre were investigated
in detail and are summarised below.
Rainwater harvesting
Each of the three pools at the Aquatics
Centre has a number of dedicated
filters which are located in the
basement plant room. To clean these
filters, each must be ‘backwashed’
with approximately 19,800 litres on
a 10-day cycle which cannot be
recirculated into the pool. In addition
to this, the evaporation losses from
the three pools, when uncovered, has
been calculated as 10,449 litres each
day which must also be replenished.
To replenish this demand, the Design
team investigated a rainwater
harvesting system which could
capitalise on the large roof area of
the venue. However, when the storage
requirements for this demand were
considered and the cost compared with
other substitution measures, rainwater
harvesting was deemed impractical
and cost prohibitive, particularly in light
of the relatively small contribution to
overall water savings.
© 2011 Olympic Delivery Authority. The official Emblems of the London 2012 Games are © London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and
Paralympic Games Limited (LOCOG) 2007. All rights reserved.
The construction of the venues and infrastructure of the London 2012 Games is funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor,
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.
For more information visit: london2012.com/learninglegacy
Storing a much smaller quantity of 1,400
rainwater was, however, considered
-29% -32%
feasible and so this will be done for
Annual Water Usage (ML)
localised irrigation purposes.
Reclaimed backwash water 800
for flushing WCs and urinals
Swimming pool systems usually
pump backwash water into the local
wastewater networks because the
0
water quality is no longer suitable Industry Low Flow Backwash
Standard Fittings Water
for use in the pool. The London Reclaim
Aquatics Centre Design team looked Figure 3: Savings from water efficient
into recycling the swimming pool fittings and backwash water reclamation
backwash water to flush WCs and
urinals. This is effectively ‘greywater’
recycling. Using reclaimed backwash Project
water was considered feasible Aquatics Centre
because of the unique and reliable
source (compared to unpredictable Suppliers
rainwater) and ample quantity Balfour Beatty – Tier One Contractor
available to meet the demand for Arup – Designer
WCs and urinals. The capital cost of
the system was £53,000 and it was Authors
designed to save 2.7Ml each year. Jo Carris – Sustainability Manager,
This provided a further three per cent CLM
saving towards the potable water
reduction, bringing the total up to Holly Knight – Sustainability
32 per cent. Manager, ODA/CLM
The result
The combination of water efficiency
and filter backwash recycling at the
Aquatics Centre is expected to achieve
a potable water saving of 32 per cent
over the building’s 25-year lifespan
(2012 to 2037). This has reduced the
lifespan baseline water usage from
1,384Ml to 936Ml.
As shown in Figure 3, the most
significant savings were made through
water efficiency (29 per cent potable
water saving) and predominantly
by reducing shower demand. The
backwash system provided a further
three per cent reduction of potable
water consumption. If the pool top-up
demand is excluded to compare like-
with-like against the other venues, the
savings are in the order of 42 per cent.
Published April 2012
ODA 2010/374