ENERGY SAVING EQUIPMENT
carbon emissions worldwide and around 80% of the buildings we will still be using in 2050 – when we are due to become net zero carbon emitters – are already in use now. Addressing their performance should be at the top of every political agenda.
Shortly after COP26, the UK Government published its new 'playbook' detailing how it plans to decarbonise public sector buildings, which comprise the biggest estate in the country and account for about 9% of the UK’s total annual building-related emissions. It also puts a broad and rapid programme of retrofitting at its heart. The long-delayed Heat and Buildings strategy that was finally published by the government in October set a direction of travel away from fossil fuel heating towards low carbon alternatives – and energy efficiency.
New gas boilers will be banned from 2035 as the government seeks to transition homes to low carbon alternatives. It is offering grants towards the cost of installing heat pumps and, by shifting green surcharges from electricity to gas bills, will make heat them cheaper to run. However, for heat pumps to deliver their best performance the building fabric needs to be optimised to cut heat losses to a minimum.
Gathering actual energy consumption data – rather than projected or estimated statistics – is also key to delivering meaningful energy efficiency savings and ensuring an existing building can get the best from installed and retrofitted technologies.
You can’t save what you can’t measure so greater take up of smart controls, metering and open source data sharing would provide building managers with a clear picture of where they can make the biggest savings and underpin specific technical improvements.
Poor energy performance of a building usually indicates there are wider problems with its overall design and operation so there are comfort and safety implications as well in getting this right. Dame Judith Hackitt’s post-Grenfell report pointed out that the industry’s failure to address a building as a complete system, rather than as a series of loosely connected components, was a contributory factor to that tragedy. In a similar way, simply bolting a low carbon technology onto a poorly performing building will always to be counter-productive; a better overall understanding of its performance should be an obvious first step.
Thankfully, our industry already has the tools it needs to deliver both the data gathering and the future performance improvements. For example, we have IT-driven systems like demand-controlled ventilation that can provide the required air change rates needed to safeguard health and well-being in indoor spaces without additional cost and energy penalties. Such systems can ‘learn’ what works best for each occupied space and continue to improve over time.
This highlights another crucial aspect raised at the BESA Conference of how to use our solutions to balance the need to control the risk of disease transmission in indoor spaces – particularly in winter – with requirements for energy saving and carbon cuts.
Productivity
Professor Cath Noakes, who is one of two engineer members the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), told the Conference that the impact of poor ventilation on human health and productivity had been clearly exposed by the pandemic.
“We know buildings can improve health and that poor indoor air quality reduces productivity by up to 9% - that’s half a working day a week.” She also pointed out that even before the pandemic 5.3 million working days were being lost every year to respiratory infections, according to the Office for National Statistics. However, the challenge for businesses and other building users, including schools, is how to improve ventilation cost-effectively. Many are simply resorting to opening windows and doors to try and increase airflows, but Professor Noakes says this ‘natural’ approach is often not enough. “The increased amount of indoor air quality monitoring since the pandemic is helping because it is making people more aware of their indoor environment,” she said. “However, it is now clear that it is very hard to naturally ventilate buildings adequately, particularly in winter.” Her advice has helped to shape government thinking on the role of ventilation throughout the pandemic to the point where the government's chief medical adviser Professor Chris Whitty placed it as the second most important investment business leaders could make to help the country recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and prepare for future health emergencies. He encouraged business leaders at this week’s
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference to look closely at how they could improve the indoor air quality (IAQ) in their buildings to provide better long-term working conditions for their employees.
Improving ventilation does not simply mean increasing flow rates, which could quickly increase energy costs. It also requires proper control of air direction to be effective and using demand control keeps energy consumption to a minimum. On the heating side, the move towards heat pumps requires a rethink of traditional methods towards an approach based on low temperature sources, which creates its own challenges. However, we also have access to mature technologies like high temperature heat pumps that can produce hot water at similar temperatures to fossil fuel boilers and also work well in tandem with renewable energy sources. Replacing a boiler with a high temperature heat pump reduces the energy consumption by around 30% for year-round operations. In addition, at partial load the gain in efficiency is even higher, since heat pumps work more efficiently at lower temperature differences between outside and inside air. Add to this the fact that heat pumps can be run on renewable energy, and you will see a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
And on the cooling side, we still do not take enough advantage of the fact that the UK climate is ideal for using ‘free cooling’ chillers. This type of technology uses the naturally occurring cool air to pre-chill the water before it reaches the refrigeration circuit and so reduces the running time of the compressors. The ambient temperature in the UK is below 15°C for about 75% of the year. As a result, clients using free cooling can save money and energy by letting the air do the cooling for them for at least three quarters of the year.
These are just some examples of how the building services industry has adapted its technologies over time to find the balance between comfort, health, and low energy operation. Many of the things we are already doing work very well and can be scaled up quickly to turn the political ambitions stated in Glasgow into real life solutions, while we continue to work on the future developments that will take us the rest of the way.
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www.acr-news.com • January 2022 15
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