NEWS Wrap turns to services


l CIBSE partnership aims to cut building services waste


The building services industry is missing out on major opportunities to cut costs and it could improve project delivery through more efficient handling of resources. The Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap), an independent, not-for-profit advisory body, has formed a partnership with CIBSE ‘to increase awareness of the opportunities and business benefits of resource efficiency’ and the engineering consultancy Aecom has been appointed to prepare CIBSE guidance on the topic.


Aecom estimates that building services represent between two and 12% of the total embodied carbon of a typical building and, because services are replaced frequently over a building’s life, they ‘represent considerable wastage of valuable resources’. ‘Resource efficiency is, essentially, about doing more with less and covers the use of materials, recycled content, embodied carbon, water use,


These could include polyethylene pipework instead of copper and increasing the use of modular construction.


Wilson: ‘A simplified design solution can use fewer components and materials’


resource scarcity and security, life span and end of life potential (e.g. reuse, recyclability),’ explained CIBSE technical director Hywel Davies.


‘Our industry has a huge role to play in ensuring increasingly valuable resources are not squandered,’ he added. WRAP and CIBSE will deliver a series of workshops covering ventilation, heating, cooling, lighting and lifts. They will also gather feedback on the practical implications of this initiative. Aecom will identify opportunities to be resource efficient and to secure capital cost savings.


‘There are already many good examples where resource efficiency principles are applied on projects,’ said Davies. ‘For example, air handling units can be re-conditioned and re-used on refurbishment projects.’ Improving resource efficiency is also a key part of streamlining project delivery, according to Aecom director Ant Wilson. ‘A simplified design solution can use fewer components and materials. The capital cost should be lower, there is less to go wrong and less energy consumed in manufacture and operation.


‘Resource efficiency can


represent savings at every step and reduce the burden on the world’s precious resources.’


Richard Buckingham, head of construction and refurbishment at WRAP, welcomed the partnership with CIBSE. ‘We hope that the project will enable us to deliver beneficial guidance for the industry,’ he added.


Resourceefficiency@cibse.org CIBSE launches new version of CHP guidance


CIBSE has launched a new version of its application manual AM12 Combined Heat and Power for Buildings, which was first published in 1999.


It features new chapters on district heating (DH) applications, information for assessing environmental benefits and more detail on tri-generation (cooling, heating and power (CHP)), as well as how to use thermal storage to extract maximum performance from a CHP system.


‘CHP can offer a more energy efficient way of generating power and is cost-effective to implement in many applications,’ a CIBSE statement said. ‘CHP produces both electric or shaft power and thermal energy onsite or near site, converting as much as 85% of the input fuel into useful energy.’


Phil Jones, chairman of the CIBSE CHP and district heating group, said it was crucial that CHP was ‘only put in the right places… and not in the wrong ones’. He added that the new guidance would also address some of the ‘misleading statements about the carbon content of different energy sources’. ‘Used appropriately, CHP increases resource energy


efficiency and helps reduce CO2 emissions. CHP systems can also improve power reliability by reducing or


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eliminating a building’s dependence on the grid,’ Jones added.


The launch took place at AECOM’s offices in London where the guide’s author, the company’s technical director Paul Woods, said the role of CHP would change as the carbon content of grid-generated electricity was reduced.


However, he sees a long-term role for the technology, particularly as commercial users are expressing growing concerns about energy security.


‘The three main challenges we face are CO2 reduction, rising energy prices and security of supply – CHP can


help with all three,’ said Woods.


Hoare Lea’s Huw Blackwell explained that CHP should not been seen as a ‘silver bullet’, adding that its misuse in some instances, simply to achieve planning permission, had done the technology no favours. He urged designers to get back into those projects to improve the operating performance of the systems. Blackwell also pointed out that CHP and heat pumps were complementary technologies. ‘They are not conflicting, because they suit different loads and applications,’ he added. AM12 is available at www.cibseknowledgeportal.co.uk


In brief


NEW SCHOOLS COULD ALL ADOPT PASSIVHAUS MODEL All new UK schools could be built to the ultra-low energy Passivhaus standard, under designs being drawn up by a leading design practice. Architype is working with


contractor Thomas Vale to create a standardised school design that could be built for the £1,480 per square metre cost required by the government. The partners, who collaborated on three Passivhaus schools in Wolverhampton, said there was no reason ‘why it wouldn’t work anywhere in the country’. The increased use of pre-


fabrication is also helping achieve these low energy and efficiency standards in new school buildings. Pre-fabrication is also the key to applying Passivhaus standards in the residential sector, added Architype. ‘We got fed up with developers


not being interested in sustainability,’ it said. ‘We’re working on an initiative to produce Passivhaus houses at the same cost as developers do, by full pre-fabrication in the UK.


1,800 GREEN DEAL ASSESSMENTS IN FIRST MONTH The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has reported that more than 1,800 Green Deal assessments were carried out in the energy efficiency scheme’s first month of operation between late January and late February. The Green Deal Finance


Company has also received £244m of government money to help set-up, finance and operate the scheme. Triumphant Energy and Climate


Change Secretary Ed Davey said: ‘We’re seeing clear signs of a promising new market gathering momentum.’ DECC added that £27m worth of


contracts had been signed under the energy company obligation (ECO), where energy suppliers pay to retrofit homes for householders on lower incomes, or in older properties. l There will be extra Green Deal funding for better performing systems, according to Steve Jones, Green Deal team leader at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. He said the government was aiming to bring changes in differentiating between products in April 2014.


April 2013 CIBSE Journal 7


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