How to make non doms zero carbon
The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) has published its consultation on Zero Carbon for New Non-domestic Buildings. The consultation closes on 26 February 2010 and members of M&E Sustainability are invited to give their opinions to the consultation.
The Government wants all new non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2019, with the public sector getting there a year earlier. The CIBSE is co-ordinating a building services industry response and comments can also be made via policy manager Samantha McDonough. She is calling for our responses by February 17.
CLG intends to adopt the broad framework it used for zero carbon homes, adapted to reflect the differences in the commercial buildings market and the variation in building type and intensity of energy use of non-domestic buildings.
They will adopt a hierarchy of energy efficiency on-site or linked low and zero carbon technologies (‘carbon compliance') off-site (‘allowable solutions'). Heat and energy generation will also be eligible for Feed In Tariffs or Renewable Heat Incentives.
Samantha explains: 'There is greater technical input in design and construction and a closer level of Building Control involvement and oversight for non-domestic buildings because of their complexity and larger scale. They have often greater potential for on-site renewables (e.g. more roof space) and to play a critical role in the viability of community heat or energy networks.
'The zero carbon standard will cover 100% of regulated emissions and CLG is considering how best to incorporate currently unregulated energy (process energy for example) given that it is already included in the carbon trading schemes.'
As for zero carbon homes, the precise combination of measures used for any particular development will not be specified (provided that an energy efficiency backstop is met). Building on the work done as part of the zero carbon homes standard, CLG is assuming that the following measures would meet the ‘carbon compliance' definition:
* Further energy efficiency measures, beyond those selected to meet the energy efficiency standard;
* Low and zero carbon generation technologies which are directly incorporated into the fabric of the building (e.g. roof-mounted solar panels);
* Low and zero carbon energy installations built within the development (e.g. development-scale combined heat and power (CHP); and
* Directly connected heat or coolth, where the ‘physical connection' can be easily demonstrated through the physical pipework.