CIBSE NATIONAL CONFERENCE
Social housing offers retrofi t lessons
The need to retrofi t dwellings is high on the industry’s agenda, but social housing providers have been improving the energy effi ciency of their properties for years, said Nigel Banks of developer Keepmoat. Such providers face the twin challenges of fi tting the right technology for different types of property and for differing tenant needs, Banks pointed out. Tenants especially need
clear and simple controls systems for the retrofi tted technologies, said Banks. They also need support from housing liaison offi cers and
Passivhaus still a key challenge for the UK
Nigel Banks
maintenance. Appointing local ‘green champions’ is also important. They also need to keep
disruption to a minimum when carrying out improvements – such as avoiding ripping up fl oors while insulating solid walls. The costs of having to maintain technologies is pushing social housing providers towards adopting a ‘passive’ approach to retrofi ts. They also have to ‘follow the funding’, said Banks, particularly as the government’s Green Deal loans systems meant that ‘we have to pay for the maintenance’. Social housing providers
are therefore tending to adopt a ‘fabric fi rst’ approach that focuses on insulation rather than replacing boilers, followed by considering fi tting solar photovoltaic panels, which are supported by the feed-in tariffs scheme. The Renewables Heat Incentive will also support the use of air-source heat pumps. Keepmoat is monitoring the outcomes of some of its retrofi t projects and hopes to be able to produce fi ndings later this year, he added.
24 CIBSE Journal May 2011
What exactly is ‘Passivhaus’ and what relevance does it have to other standards for new-builds and refurbishment? Jennifer Hardi of research body BRE said that a Passivhaus standard for refurbishment of properties is now available, although it is not a formal standard as yet and so far applies only to dwellings. Hardi insisted that Passivhaus should not be
seen as in competiton with the Code for Sustainable Homes, or with BREEAM in the UK. ‘These are three different standards, but they can
also work hand in hand,’ she said, adding that, in her view, ‘Passivhaus is about the operating energy peformance of buildings, while the Code and BREEAM take more of a holistic approach’ to assessing a building. BRE, which runs BREEAM, recognises that
‘refurbishment uses different benchmarks’ from new-build, and so BRE is considering developing a separate BREEAM for refurbs, Hardi said. She rejected the view
that Passivhaus standards are very diffi cult to achieve. The Passivhaus approach simply adopts a ‘fabric fi rst’ approach that is not wedded to using any particular technologies or renewables, she said. ‘Therefore you can have Passivhaus as a fabric-fi rst approach and then embed it into your use of the Code.’
District energy delivers emissions cut
The benefi ts of a district energy scheme (DES) for an existing property was outlined by Simon Woodward of engineering group Cofely.
When established local developments such as hospitals, town halls and universities are to be refurbished, the creation of a DES can offer low carbon heating and hot water services. In Birmingham, Cofely has
formed a district-energy partnership
with the city council, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Aston University to develop a DES. The aim is to develop combined heat and power-based district energy across the city centre. The system is projected to
deliver emissions savings of 12,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, Woodward said. Woodward admitted that the underground piping for DESs can have heat losses of up to 30%,
but he insisted that good-quality services should provide losses in the range of fi ve to 10%. Britain is still behind other
European countries in the development of DESs because of the long payback period needed to recover investments, which can be 20 to 30 years, stated Woodward. ‘The problem is that organisations are fearful of contracting for energy for a period longer than just one year.’
www.cibsejournal.com
‘ You can have Passivhaus as a fabric-fi rst approach and then embed it into the Code’ Jennifer Hardi
Jennifer Hardi
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