ECA News
BIM guidance issued DECC: sunny times for solar? n
Guidance for specialist contractors on
how to respond to rapidly growing interest in Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been issued by SEC Group and the National Specialist Contractors’ Confederation. The joint guidance, which is free to access, outlines the opportunities and challenges for specialists, including contractual issues and managing information exchange with others in the supply chain. On the way, it aims to demystify much of the jargon surrounding BIM. The Cabinet Office,
through the government’s construction strategy, has mandated the use of BIM on all government projects by 2016. The guide follows discussions between the government and the two umbrella bodies on how to boost engagement with the specialist sector. This led to a combined BIM group, chaired by David Frise, supported by the ECA, several leading building services contractors, and other key stakeholders. The guide is one of the group’s first outputs.
Rudi Klein, chief executive of SEC Group, said: ‘We want to encourage firms to look at BIM, to better understand what they are letting themselves in for, and what the potential benefits are.’ Klein said early supply chain involvement in BIM would be ‘critical to its success’, and he encouraged the supply chain to work ‘much more collaboratively’ with design teams on projects. Paul Reeve, ECA head of
Business Policy and Practice, said: ‘The new guide is a very timely introduction to BIM for smaller specialist contractors in particular. The first step to knowing what to do about BIM is being aware of what it is – and for that matter, what it isn’t. The new guide should be a big help to those who are looking for a no-nonsense explanation of what’s on the way.’ Reeve added: ‘The guide is a welcome landmark in cooperation between SEC Group and the NSCC, and it is to their credit that they have worked together to help specialists to understand what BIM could mean for business in the next few years.’
TECHNICAL UPDATE: UK electrical installation industry moves to safer, better practices
The Electrotechnical Assessment Specification Management Committee (EAS) has agreed the implementation of the new Qualified Supervisors technical competence requirements, to take effect from 6 April 2013, with the industry bodies represented on the EAS Management Committee announcing that a new Level 3 qualification has been developed. There are five different routes satisfying the
requirements for registration as a Qualified Supervisor, including on-site assessment and the gaining of appropriate qualifications. Existing Qualified Supervisors The new requirement will not apply retrospectively to existing Qualified Supervisors. Persons who already have a competency-based qualification as outlined in the EAS document will not need to have the new qualification if they apply to become a new Qualified Supervisor after 5 April 2013.
What about practising Qualified Supervisors applying before 6 April 2013? The new requirement applies only to proposed Qualified Supervisors applying after 5 April 2013. What about persons previously registered as Qualified Supervisors? Persons who have been working as registered Qualified Supervisors within the two years preceding 6 April 2013 will be eligible to be proposed as a Qualified Supervisor for a new employer without needing to demonstrate the new level of technical competence. Qualification For those choosing the qualification route, the new Level 3 qualification, a certificate in Installing, Testing and Ensuring Compliance of Electrical Installations in Dwellings is now available. This will be the minimum qualification level for Qualified Supervisors responsible for electrical work in domestic properties subject
to Part P of the Building Regulations (England and Wales). For compliance with Building Regulations in Scotland, Approved Certifiers of Construction for electrical installations must be eligible to be graded as Approved Electricians and be suitably qualified – for example, SVQ Level 3 in electrical engineering or equivalent. For work in commercial or industrial
premises, the minimum qualification requirement for Qualified Supervisors will be the new Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Installing Electrotechnical Systems and Equipment (Building and Structures). Appropriate Electrotechnical NVQ qualifications are currently certificated through two awarding organisations: City & Guilds (www.
cityandguilds.com) and EAL (
www.eal.org.uk). n For more information on Electrotechnical Level 3 NVQs, see the SummitSkills, City and Guilds and EAL websites.
n
TheDepartment of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has
concluded that solar power should ‘form a significant part’ of theUK’s renewable electricity mix by 2020. Its statement, in the government’s updated renewable energy roadmap that was published on 27December 2012, updates progress towards the EU target of obtaining 15 per cent ofUK energy from renewables by
2020.DECC speculates that well over 7 Gigawatts of solar power – perhaps a lot more – could be operational in theUK by 2020, and it aims to publish a ‘solar strategy’ with ‘a clear vision for solarPV through to 2020, seeking to provide long- term investor confidence’. DECC’s revised outlook reflects an
increasing focus on the importance of solar photovoltaics (PV) compared with the previous government roadmap in summer 2011, which simply stated that solar technology ‘could have a role to play’. Official projections then suggest thatDECC expected far less than 3 GW
of solar power to be operational by 2020. The change inDECC’s stance since then partly reflects rapidly fallingPV system costs over the past 18 months. As of January 2013, nearly 1.5GW of building PV installation was reported to be already operational in theUK, with reports of another 1GW being installed inUK fields up to March. In addition to crucial factors such as
PV price, customer demand and even raw material availability,DECC now suggests that the technical limit for solar deployment, based on ‘interconnection and export capacity, available electricity storage, on-site usage and infrastructure modifications for electricity transmission and distribution’ is a staggering 20 GW of solar
capacity.Paul Reeve, head of BusinessPolicy at the ECA, commented: ‘Government policy – and other strategic factors such as raw material availability – are likely to leave theUK well short of 20 GW deployment but, potentially, there is massiveUK medium term potential forUK solar. What installers need from government is a reliable trading environment that can turn that potential into commercial deployment. What contractors got from government in the last 18 months was anything but that – government now needs to up its support for the sector spectacularly and, since we are talking about saving and building real contracting businesses and jobs, to move quickly.’
12 ECA Today March 2013
SHUTTERSTOCK/LISA S.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64