BUILDING PERFORMANCE CARBONBUZZ
The revamped CarbonBuzz online platform gives designers and clients the opportunity to share data on the predicated and actual energy use of their buildings. Judit Kimpian says councils and developers have embraced the tool and are using the data to understand and tackle the performance gap
sREALITY A user-friendly interface allows portfolio
holders and building owners to track the energy consumption of their estate, as well as improvements in performance. For example, British Land told the CIBSE
Technical Symposium that it had achieved a 39% reduction in the energy consumption of its London offi ce portfolio (
www.cibse. org/content/cibsesymposium2013/snoxall. pdf). And the Better Buildings Partnership, an alliance of commercial property fi rms, together with Transport for London, is developing new benchmarks for energy use that rate landlords’ services separately from tenant consumption. In its Supplementary Planning Document, Islington Council encourages post-occupancy evaluations and CarbonBuzz for all projects. Bath and Somerset County Council, which uses a regeneration model based on the whole-life cost of its estate, is setting measured energy use targets on its fl agship Keynsham Regeneration project, instead of opting for BREEAM or other sustainability ratings, which still rely on compliance metrics to plan for low-energy operation. Many engineering and architecture practices, including Aedas, Architype, Atelier Ten, Feilden Clegg Bradley and
www.cibsejournal.com
aecom view the focus on operational energy use as an opportunity – it makes a clear case for design features that help buildings adapt to long-term changes in climate, demographics and occupancy patterns, and cut operating costs. The type of energy literacy advocated by CarbonBuzz sets a level playing fi eld and makes the Soft Landings process more robust and accountable. Using CarbonBuzz, architects and engineers can, for the fi rst time, log how energy consumption targets are met at key project stages – and demonstrate that investment in low energy measures have brought about the expected returns. What a revelation that will be…. With nearly 400 projects uploaded to
CarbonBuzz, it is already beginning to provide feedback to industry about the scale of the performance gap. Analysis of the data demonstrates that, on average,
most buildings consume between 1.5 and 2.5 times that of the declared design stage calculations and, in the case of offi ces and education buildings, this anomaly largely arises from increased electrical energy use. Other studies, such as a report by Jones
Lang LaSalle, demonstrate similarly little correlation between Energy Performance Certifi cates (EPCs) and operational energy
Screenshot from CarbonBuzz comparing the calculated energy use of a retail building with the measured performance
Data from CIBSE’s Building Performance Awards winner The Hive, and the Pool Innovation Centre (main picture) will be available on
CarbonBuzz.org
The new CarbonBuzz platform is being launched on 6 June at City Hall, London. To feature your building or for more information go to
www.carbonbuzz.org
June 2013 CIBSE Journal 23
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 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72