Back to basics
Back to basics approach needed to meet energy goals
Nuclear power and renewables hog the headlines, but energy efficiency has to be the first priority when it comes to addressing climate change, according to Ewen Rose*.
The White Paper unveiled by the Government in May concentrates on plugging our looming power generation gaps by beefing up the nuclear industry, encouraging investment in renewables and proposals for a mandatory carbon trading scheme. However, ahead of all these things needs to be energy efficiency, but this tends to get less attention because it is less glamorous.
According to the Carbon Trust, British firms literally threw away £570 million last summer – or the equivalent of 15% of their total energy spend. On average, commercial buildings in the UK are consuming 35% more energy than they were designed to usually because the building services were never properly commissioned.
This has to be our industry’s first and main task. Renewable technologies will play an increasingly important role, but we will not enjoy their full potential until we address energy consumption and demand in buildings.
Industrial consumption of energy has fallen dramatically since the 1970s because our manufacturing base has shrunk, but the service sector has galloped off in the other direction and now consumes 80% more gas and electricity than it did in 1980. This is where the building services industry can make a huge difference by applying best practice energy efficient design and refurbishment.
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone chastised building developers for attacking the Greater London Authority’s new target for 20% of building power requirements to come from on site renewables.
“The 20% target is easy to achieve if the developers improve the standards of their buildings to make them less energy intensive,” he said at the recent Low Carbon World conference. “If you cut energy demand before adding renewables, you only need to achieve 20% of a small amount.
“We could save 20 million tonnes of carbon in London by improving efficiency and changing behaviour without the need for any new regulation or technologies,” he added.
Aspirations
In most cases, the initial design of a building services system contains the right aspirations and many of the right techniques, but on too many occasions something goes badly wrong between that point and actual implementation.
This is why consulting engineers need to work hand in glove with contractors as early as possible in the process to ensure the systems they design can be properly and accurately implemented throughout their working life.
Commissioning is right at the heart of the new Building Regulations and there is also a strong argument for annual building ‘MoT’s’ with continuous commissioning to ensure buildings continue to operate as intended.
FMs must also be involved from the outset, trained and encouraged to schedule in periodic recommissioning as part of their standard maintenance plans. After all, electrical systems are now subject to a five yearly mandatory safety check, so why not have a similar regime in place to ensure building services systems are operating as designed?
Building services contractors have the skills to provide remedial work, put under-performing systems back on track and start to lower the emissions from existing buildings, but they have to seize the opportunity.
We are already seeing a steady influx of unregistered and unqualified people into the industry on the back of the growing demand for renewable solutions – particularly solar domestic hot water. It is so important that the specialist trades and designers take control of this market because emerging solutions like solar, geothermal, and wind power will only deliver energy savings and reduced carbon emissions if they are properly integrated with existing services. And, where necessary, those existing services need to be recommissioned by someone who knows what they are doing.
*Ewen Rose is a consultant to M&E Sustainability and editor of this website.