News 11 Get back to basics and retrofit green
BRITISH businesses must get serious about retrofitting to energy-saving equipment in their facilities, instead of chasing “green bling” buildings, if they want to meet emissions targets and save money.
This was the urgent call from facilities management leaders speaking at an industry-wide conference.
The event, hosted in February by ebm-papst UK at the company’s Chelmsford headquarters, was entitled ‘energy efficient buildings and commercial retrofit and refurbishment’.
Mike Malina, director of consultancy Energy Solutions Associates, argued companies needed to be doing more to review energy use profiles of existing builds if they want to help the Government meet its EU target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gasses by 2050. “Everybody goes for green bling, they don’t look at the real fundamental need for
retrofit in a building – they want to be seen to be green but forget the basics,” he said. “If only officials would give existing buildings the resources and improvements they need – 90% of the buildings we’re going to have in 2050 are already here, so we need to be looking at retrofit.” Underlining the long- term benefits for retrofitted equipment, Mr Malina concluded: “The cheapest kilowatt is the one you never use, this goes for everyone – saving energy is a business and financial investment, whether it’s fitting EC fans or using good filters. By doing this you will get massive savings over years, rather than by just sticking a solar panel on your roof.”
His comments were supported by Siemens’ marketing manager Ian Ellis, who referred back to last year’s ‘big six’ energy hike controversy, saying: “There was nothing discussed during that
debate about what could be done to make sure energy runs more efficiently once it gets in your building. To get the Government interested here, we in building services need to get people thinking about the demand side.”
He added: “We can’t just think that in order to meet Government targets we will build a load of new buildings and mitigate carbon emissions as they come in – you have to be looking at existing building structure and what you can do with what you’ve got.” A primary example of a ‘no brainer’ retrofit described by Mr Ellis was how simply updating a class C Building Automation and Controls System to a class A unit could result in a 30% annual energy saving in a building, with a two- year payback period to balance out the upgrade.
Helen McHugh, head of sustainability at ebm-papst, underlined the major impact of choosing smart, efficient
EC technology on a business’s bottom line when she talked delegates through a series of case studies where the manufacturer had been asked to retrofit its fans to facilities in London, Copenhagen and Oxford.
One of ebm-papst’s major projects was installing new fans at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron near Oxford has reduced the facility’s energy use by more than 55% as well as dramatically reducing the levels of noise and vibration, which was one of the customer’s main requirements.
Comptec
Visit ACR News online at
www.acr-news.com
ACR News May 2014
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