in the face of changing occupancy patterns.
This theme was picked up during a panel session about ‘The Future Building’ where speakers pointed out that more clients, planners, and developers were challenging the industry to make existing buildings perform better rather than build new ones. “The industry needs to get its head around the fact that refurbishment is where it is happening,” said Frances Brown, associate director of Hoare Lea. “The market is moving quickly towards re-use and repurpose and that means in-depth improvement of building performance through continuous upgrades,” she said. “We now have developers and planners agreeing that we should not be building new but making the best of what we already have. Clients also want us to make their existing buildings work better so they continue to make money.” Several speakers also said Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting
was another driving force for clients keen to improve their carbon footprint and deliver better building ‘experiences’ for their own staff , customers and tenants. BESA President-elect Claire Curran chaired a panel debate about ‘Women in Construction’ that welcomed the growing number of young women coming into the sector but said the building services sector needed to market itself better to attract its fair share of talent. “A new generation of women are showing interest in careers where they can
infl uence climate change so need to be directed our way,” said Lucy Sherburn of Fairheat. “We need to point out that we are saving the planet…while many other careers are not.” Alexandra Knight, founder of the diversity initiative STEMazing, urged delegates
to promote engineering careers in their local schools. She added that stereotypes needed to be challenged more aggressively including suggestions that STEM careers are not for women and that “you have to be amazing at Maths”. Competence in general was an over-arching theme with Arup’s transformation
director Gill Kernick calling for a change of emphasis: “The industry is very focused on tackling competence, but tends to stick to ‘technical’ competence because that’s what we understand best, but we need to be competent in areas like analysing why we fail and risk management.”
Demand reduction
More also needs to be done to encourage demand reduction in buildings to meet decarbonisation goals, according to Scott Mason, chair of the CIBSE Patrons, who was part of a panel looking at potential heating solutions. “We often jump straight into mechanical intervention and ignore ways to cut demand like façade effi ciency upgrades,” he said. “People can get railroaded by tech – I’ve got a bigger heat pump than you! – and we need to avoid competing claims when it is likely to be a combination of solutions that will deliver the right results.” There was an open forum about a ground-breaking collaboration between the
built environment’s leading professional bodies who are seeking to align the data standards used to manage costing, carbon and building and facilities maintenance, in a bid to clear up confusion and shift the digital focus from new build to whole life building performance. The fact that BESA, CIBSE, RICS and NBS are working together on this with support from the Government Property Agency prompted one attendee to describe it as a “game changing moment for building maintenance and operation”. There was also general comment from delegates on the “busy atmosphere” and
breadth of topics covered in a relatively short period – with a range of ‘takeaways’ to help them shape their business strategies for the coming months. As one senior fi gure said: “There’s a buzz and energy around BESA, you want to get things done and I like that”.
www.theBESA.com
ViewPoint Y
Sun shines for heat pump installers Jonny Hancock, product manager at NIBE Energy Systems
ou’re probably expecting me to talk about heat pumps and I am but fi rst, I wanted to bring your attention to the recent increase in solar PV installations across the
UK. We’ve seen quite a fl urry of activity across the industry and it is something that must be celebrated. This upward trend is something we’ve seen in the heat pump market too and I think it signals a real shift in consumer
mindset. We’re all concerned about energy costs right now and solar PV is being touted as a solution to tackling increasing bills. Installing solar PV as part of a property retrofi t can have a massive impact on running costs and carbon emissions. It’s clear that consumers are awakening to the benefi ts. In August alone, there was a 144% increase in registered solar PV installations compared to August 2021, at 12,411 and 5,082 respectively. Now you may ask what has this got to do with heat pumps? Well heat pumps and solar PV go hand in hand, and one is often a catalyst for the other. With rising electricity prices, customers with heat pumps could benefi t from the installation of solar PV by reducing their reliance on grid electricity. Also, households that already have solar PV may look to heat pump solutions as a means of lowering their heating costs. At NIBE, we’ve combined the two in our multi-source heat pump system using photovoltaic-thermal panels. The panels are used as an alternative collector source for the heat pump, reducing or removing the need for traditional boreholes or ground arrays. These systems produce both thermal and electrical energy for the property. So, there is a fantastic opportunity for heat pump installers to not only provide
low-cost heating alternatives to traditional fossil fuel boilers, but they can also further reduce household running costs by recommending solar PV or PV-T alongside them to provide zero cost clean renewable energy. In fact, over a third of MCS heat pump installers also off er solar PV. While heat pump running costs are mainly felt in the winter, hot water is needed all year around and a well-designed system can provide free hot water throughout the summer. As many people know, an effi ciency ratio of 1:1 can be achieved by using solar PV to power immersion heaters, but by using a solar PV to power a heat pump, an effi ciency ratio of 1:4 can be achieved, meaning that households can get three times more free heat for hot water, when compared to powering an immersion heater. This effi ciency can result in cost savings, as data from across NIBE installations suggest that a cost saving of 24% could be achieved by adding a solar PV system to a heat pump. In addition, when there is no electricity demand from the heat pump, solar PV
systems can be used to power all household electrical appliances. Heat pumps also allow customers to make the most out of their solar PV
system throughout the year. On those shorter sunny days, customers can store energy to run their heat pumps in the evening, by topping up the buff er vessel during the day or by using battery storage. Installers can also gain MCS certifi cation for battery storage. The NIBE S-series has also been designed with connectivity in mind, and
incorporates Modbus communication as standard to connect directly with solar PV inverters. This allows an S-series heat pump to display solar production information, and optimise how solar generated electricity is used.
www.nibe.eu/en-gb/products/solar-products/pv-t www.nibe.eu/en-gb/installer/what-is-nibe-pro www.napit.org.uk
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November 2022
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