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DESIGN MASTERCLASS 9 SUSTAINABILITY


THE BIG PICTURE


When photovoltaics were installed on this south London building it was an exemplar. Then the neighbours built higher, overshadowing part of the roof. If any part of a PV string is in shadow the output from the entire string is affected, so the decline in generation from this installation has been dramatic


MASTERCLASS


Professor Doug King


This month’s article looks beyond low carbon design to consider the broader potential implications of the apparently straightforward decisions made by engineering designers


www.cibsejournal.com


P


revious Masterclasses have focused on aspects of design that will allow us to manage energy use in buildings and so deliver low carbon


operation. However, if we want to become the engineers of a low carbon society, we must turn our minds to much wider issues than simply addressing energy use in the individual buildings we design. In the same way that architects must


consider their designs in the context of much broader urban design issues, so we must now begin to consider the impact of our low carbon approach on our neighbours, on the energy supply infrastructure, and on the economy as


a whole. We cannot deliver the new low carbon paradigm for society if we continue to just consider individual buildings in isolation. Recently, policies for onsite renewable


energy have created a reliance on small- scale generation in urban locations, which may not be the sustainable solution in the long term. In a previous Masterclass (June 2010) I outlined the physics behind wind energy, which demonstrates that it is virtually worthless in an urban environment. The other popular alternative for urban


renewable generation, photovoltaics, requires good solar access to the building


October 2011 CIBSE Journal 59


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