Urban Energy Research
Group
19th November 2014
Prof Phil Banfill P.F.G.Banfill@hw.ac.uk
School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure &
Society ~160 academics, ~200 researchers
Institute for
Infrastructure
& Environment
Institute of
Petroleum
Engineering
Institute for Social Policy,
Housing, Environment &
Real Estate
Royal Academy of Engineering
Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design
Urban Energy Research Group (~20 people)
Urban Energy Research Group
 Tarbase (EPSRC/Carbon Trust)
 Low carbon futures (EPSRC ARCC)
 Historic and traditional buildings (Historic Scotland + PhD)
 Concrete to Cookers (EPSRC)
 Measures for solid wall dwellings - CALEBRE (RCUK/E.on)
 Adaptation and resilience in energy systems (EPSRC ARCC)
 Office buildings – refurbishment and LCA (PhDs)
 Schools and factories – energy utilisation (PhDs)
 Wind farms – community involvement (PhD)
 Fuel poverty and refurbishment campaigns (NESTA)
 Whole life analysis of building components (RAEng)
Total funding of £4m since 2004, 150 research publications.
Research methods
 Building performance modelling and energy
monitoring
 Life Cycle Assessment
 System integration
 Economic methods - whole life costing
 Qualitative methods – interviews, surveys,
questionnaires, focus groups
Low-carbon
refurbishment and newbuild in future climates
19th November 2014
Dr David Jenkins D.P.Jenkins@hw.ac.uk
Project example 1 - TARBASE
 Carbon Trust/EPSRC Carbon
Vision Buildings Programme
 Consortium project £1.4M
 Technologies to reduce carbon
emissions of the existing building
stock by 50-80%
 Retrofit packages costed and user
acceptance analysis carried out
 “Tarbase Domestic Model”
produced for low-carbon retrofits
Project example 1 - TARBASE
 Education buildings have specific issues
 Migrating towards an “office” type environment
 Has implications on building services and activity
 Considerable change to what we think of as a
“school” building in last decade
Schools – Case study
Teaching space
Staff
Assembly
Changing room
Sports hall
WC
Storage
Dining/Social
Circulation area
15m
10m
19m
18m
28m
28m
5m
6m
14m
9m
8m
4m
4.5m
12m
40m
26m
7m
16.5m
Birmingham
10,000m2 Total Floor
Area
1,250 pupils
25
Annual CO2 emissions (kgCO2/m2)
20
15
50% saving
10
80% saving
5
0
2005 baseline
2005 + equip/light
interventions
+ 2030 climate
+ fabric interventions
and cond. boiler
Cooking (gas)
Cooking (elec)
Hot water
Fans and Pumps
Heating
Lighting
Small power
25
Demand-side measures Supply-side measures
Electric
Gas
Wind = 1 x 20kW
PV = 54kW
2
Annual CO2 Emissions (kgCO2/m )
20
15
50% saving
10
80% saving
5
0
2005 baseline
2030 demand scenario
+ SHW
+ PV
+ wind turbines (low
wind), no PV
+ wind turbines (high
wind), no PV
+ wind turbines (low
wind) + PV
But for a building without a cooling system...
% of occupied hours that teaching area exceeds 28degC
25
20
With our lowcarbon retrofit
15
2030 scenario
With shading
With increased ventilation
10
BB87
5
CIBSE A
0
Secondary School Edinburgh
Secondary School London
But this is all modelled
 Energy performance modelling is useful but it
must be used appropriately
 The intention is to point the designer in the right
direction
 But we are beholden to the models to some
extent...
Are we producing
lower energy
buildings or lower
energy certificates?
JLL/BBP “A Tale of Two Buildings” (2012)
Project example 2 – Low Carbon Futures
 EPSRC £624k
 Part of ARCC programme using
latest climate projections
 Model-based risk analysis of building
failure due to climate change
 Overheating
 Cooling loads
 Heating/cooling systems
 Tool produced that emulates 1000s
of building simulations from a single
simulation
LCF Objectives overview
 How can building simulation use the latest UK
Climate Projection (UKCP’09) database?
 How can this be used for designing adaptations
for buildings in the future?
 How can all the above be incorporated into a
method that is useful for industry for overheating
analyses?
 And, by association, other types of building analysis
(e.g. heating/cooling loads)
Practitioner feedback
 In parallel to modelling work, industry feedback
was obtained at various stages of the work
 Interviews
 Questionnaires
 Focus Groups
 Used to investigate:
 Type of overheating analysis currently carried out
 Is “probability” a useful concept in overheating?
 Does the LCF tool have an end use?
UKCP09
Use of
DSM for
calibration
Probabilistic
overheating
regression
analysis
Simplify
climate
input
No Adaptation
Current climate
Med emission, 2030
Med emission, 2050
Med emission, 2080
100%
Probability of occurence
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
Overheating
threshold
10%
0%
0
5
10
15
% of occupied hours > 28°C
20
With Adaptation
Current climate
Med emission, 2030
Med emission, 2050
Med emission, 2080
100%
Probability of occurence
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0
5
10
15
% of occupied hours > 28°C
20
Simplifying output
2080, High
2080, Medium
2080, Low
2050, High
2050, Medium
2050, Low
2030, High
2030, Medium
2030, Low
Current climate
% chance of failure
80-100
60-80
40-60
20-40
0-20
NA AD1 AD2 AD3
What we have learnt....
 A modelled building is not real
 Don’t place complete trust in an EPC
 A low-carbon building must be adapted for a
future climate
 And having a consistent method for practitioners is
important
 But do not underestimate the required action for
retrofitting such buildings to a low-carbon standard
 For non-domestic buildings, internal activity is
key to overall energy performance