Retrofitting the future: Why the next 25 years will define UK building performance
Tom Garrigan, Executive Director, BSRIA
BACK in 2010 when BSRIA’s then-CEO, Andrew, made his predictions, that proved remarkably accurate. Now, 15 years on, the building services and construction industry still sits at the heart of how we live and work, and predicting what comes next is no easy feat. Perhaps even more so now we’re faced with the monumental task of retrofitting the nation’s buildings. Today, we have a clearer, albeit not necessarily cheerier, view of the road ahead: nearly 29 million homes need upgrades by the end of 2050. An intimidating number made even more stark when we consider that it equates to just over two homes undergoing retrofit every minute for the next 25 years. This brings me to prediction 1: the retrofit challenge we foresaw back then now dwarfs anything in living memory. Fewer than 5% of UK homes meet energy efficiency standards, exposing a collective inertia that needs urgent action. It’s not just the scale that matters, it’s the approach. Past shortcuts have proven costly. Today, we still jump into technology solutions before considering real-world performance. Now, an effective fabric-first approach must be the foundation to unlock the full potential of technologies such as heat pumps.
Prediction 2: the performance of ventilation systems will continue to rely on the competency of those who design, install, commission, use and manage them. That competency will need to expand beyond traditional mechanical expertise to include digital intelligence, integrating building science, environmental health, data analytics, and AI driven system control to ensure that buildings breathe safely, efficiently, and sustainably. Prediction 3: In our last set of predictions, we stressed a need for performance measurement, and that challenge has only grown. EPCs are not fit for purpose. If we’re to understand and target real building performance, better diagnostics, both pre and post- retrofit, are urgently needed. The gap in consumer knowledge remains vast: just 6% of people know their own homes EPC rating. This isn’t just an engineering challenge, it’s and engagement and education one too. Prediction 4: Heat pump installations have increased by 48% year-on-year, while datacentres now consume up to 3% of the UK’s electricity, with cooling systems alone accounting for as much as 40% of their energy consumption. The challenge is not just to generate energy, as outlined by Andrew, but to maximise efficiency, ensuring that processes are designed to minimise energy demand and prioritise demand reduction. Uptake of heat reuse technologies
will offer a way to transform datacentres from energy drains into low-carbon assets.
Ultimately, BSRIA’s 2010 reflections ring truer than ever: we remain optimistic, and we know innovation is there. But the scale of what’s needed is significant and, unless we act with urgency now, our 2050 ambitions risk remaining aspirational rather than attainable.
The only outcome that matters: buildings must use less energy
Tony Day,
Energy & Research Consultant
Fifteen years ago, I predicted that buildings in 2060 would be smarter, more energy efficient, and powered by distributed energy systems that included renewables and hydrogen fuel cells. In the intervening years if I have learned anything it is not to trust predictions! Having said that, some of those original predictions still stand.
We are still on a journey towards smarter buildings, although much more slowly than I had expected. Market drivers and energy price signals have not yet provided a demand driven shift to more intelligent and better run buildings. But AI might provide an impetus to accelerate this, with better machine learning for building management and control systems, even at the residential level. The electrification of services, including heat, will enable better data collection, management and control, with better feedback to consumers on cost and carbon efficiencies. Also still relevant is the prediction of using more renewable and distributed electricity generation. However, we are seeing a rapid growth in transmission level renewable generation and storage, which may
HVR 65th Anniversary Supplement
well compete with more embedded generation systems. This is a major challenge for the UK energy networks and for consumers alike, and my personal preference would see consumers win out. The energy system of the future needs to be more distributed, smarter and interactive, rather than the passive top-down approach being favoured. Network upgrade costs may well be the deciding factor in how this plays out, together with the evolution and innovation in energy storage systems. This brings me to the original idea that hydrogen storage and fuel cell CHP would play a significant role. Hydrogen may yet prove to be a storage medium of choice as current battery technology cannot get us through the pinch points of low sun and wind periods, over even allow solar to meet significant peaks. But hydrogen round trip efficiencies are poor and storage methods still an open question. Couple this with government flip-flopping on promised support for hydrogen R&D and the sector remains somewhat in limbo, with slow progress. The growth of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) may fill the gap, but nuclear costs have always remained stubbornly high, with waste processing and disposal unsolved challenge. SMRs are an untested commercial technology, and it may take more than 30 years to make this truly commercially viable at scale.
Given these supply side costs and challenges the one absolute essential task will be for buildings to radically improve energy efficiency and reduce demand. Removing demand is the best way to keep whole system costs down. This is less a prediction and more of a plea as we have seen that the track record on energy management of our old building stock has never lived up to expectations. Smarter energy management may well be the key.
www.heatingandventilating.net
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