14 RUTH TALKS - SUSTAINABILITY & ENERGY EFFICIENCY
On the £94 million renewal of the Packington Estate in north London, which will have its own energy centre, Hoare Lea has responsibility of the energy and sustainability strategies, including waste management. ©
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Architects: Pollard Thomas Edwards
©
www.shove-media.com Architects: Pollard Thomas Edwards
So, for example, if lighting controls are too sensitive, flicking the lights on and off whenever a cloud passes the building, they will be so irritating that building users will override them. And it is not just design that can go wrong, but also corporate guidance. Three years ago, Bateson wrote a guide for the British Council of Offices on environmental management of offices. As part of his research, he interviewed the facilities manager of a major office building who said that the main problem he had came from women in the office complaining that the air conditioning made the building too cold in summer. But he could do nothing about this evident waste of energy, because he had been given a performance
specification that stipulated the temperatures at which he had to keep the building.
While he does not underestimate the amount that needs to be done in order to make our buildings greener, Bateson does not believe that this will include new technical breakthroughs. ‘I think the technology is all there,’ he says. ‘We have the smart meters; we have every kind of occupancy and automatic control. We can just look at existing techniques and technology, and at combining them.’
One thing he does believe is essential is making buildings ready now for the technology that should reach them in the future. This means for example eschewing
electric heating, as it would not be possible to connect it to a district heating scheme.
Smart meters have a key role to play he believes. They have an immediate benefit of making people automatically cut their energy consumption by 10 to 20 per cent simply by making them aware of what they are consuming. But equally important in the future, he believes, will be the introduction of differential tariffs, making energy most expensive at the time of peak demand, and so encouraging people to change their patterns of energy use.
This is essential, Bateson believes, because generating capacity has to relate not to average demand but to peak demand – we need enough electricity to serve all those people who want to make a cup of tea at the same time after a favourite television programme. If we can cut peak demand then we can also reduce the amount of generating capacity that we need.
Producing the energy and sustainability strategy for the reworking of Terminal Two at Heathrow Airport was an early project for Ashley Bateson. © BBA
The projects on which Bateson's team works range from massive masterplans to individual buildings – a fascinating portfolio. But he feels there is a gap. ‘We would love to work on an existing building,’ he says, ‘but there is less of a tangible client for that work, and very little regulatory improvement required. It doesn’t seem that sustainable spending all that money to build to level 6 of the code for sustainable homes when across the road there is somebody living in an uninsulated house, in fuel poverty.’
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