EIBI March 2022

MARCH 2022

PROMOTING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

www.eibi.co.uk

In this issue

Smart Buildings CPD Module: Air Handling Heating Technology Data Centre Efficiency Water Management

Smart buildings But where are the smart people?

Industrial heating Ready for the hydrogen revolution?

Cutting water use Cuts energy costs and emissions

NEWS � FEATURES � INTERVIEWS � REVIEWS � PRODUCT PROFILES � CPD MODULE � DIRECTORY � JOBS EIBI_0322_001_(MT).indd 1

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MARCH 2022

PROMOTING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

www.eibi.co.uk

Contents

www.eibi.co.uk

In this issue

Smart Buildings CPD Module: Air Handling Heating Technology Data Centre Efficiency Water Management

Smart buildings But where are the smart people?

Industrial heating Ready for the hydrogen revolution?

Cutting water use Cuts energy costs and emissions

NEWS � FEATURES � INTERVIEWS � REVIEWS � PRODUCT PROFILES � CPD MODULE � DIRECTORY � JOBS EIBI_0322_001_(MT).indd 1

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MARCH 2022

28

06 FEATURES

With advances in heat pump technology electrification of heating in process and critical applications is now a realistic proposition, believes Dave Palmer (26)

11 Smart Buildings

A whisky producer has turned to liquid gas to cut energy costs at its distilleries. A range of heat pumps is expanded while a heat interface unit is now available for heat pumps or boilers (28)

Frank Bakker examines how integrated photovoltaics can play an important role on the road to making buildings not only smart but also energy independent Will Darby outlines the threats and explains what can be done to ensure mission critical facilities remain secure while minimising their energy usage (12) Paul Wetherfield discusses the ways in which the organisation’s focus on training and apprenticeships is helping to tackle the skills shortage (14)

22 Heating Technology

Hydrogen can be an unpredictable fuel. But Steve Sherman examines how hydrogen can be used safely for infrared instant heating in factories and public buildings Abandoned mines could provide a rich source of energy for urban areas. Depak Lal looks at an experimental project under the streets of Glasgow (25)

30 31

Data Centre Efficiency Maria Fedorovicheva explains how ultra-low harmonic drives can help data centre operators limit energy consumption and reduce data centre carbon footprint

Water Management Paul Winnett explains how harnessing the power of intelligent technology offers the opportunity to improve water efficiency and minimise consumption in buildings With the spotlight on energy costs Barry McGovaney looks at some of the things to keep in mind to help lower future running costs and help the planet too (32)

REGULARS 06 News Update Heat pumps now ‘costing more to run than condensing boilers,’ while satellites are set to spot energy waste across the globe. China’s biggest energy-consuming industries must hit new standards by 2025

experiences have shown that careful planning and patience are needed to take those long journeys

16 ESTA Viewpoint

George Barnes wouldn’t give back his electric car. But recent

Solar panels helping cut costs at a waterside pub, while over 1,000 sensors have been fitted at a refurbished hotel in Ireland

29 New Products

New to the market is a range of pumps for light duty applications.

A producer of ventilation products has released a guide to sustainable building design

09 The Warren Report A market shift is underway in the rental homes sector since Government legislation mandated that all such properties must have an EPC rating of at least C from 2025

21 Products in Action

17 The Fundamental Series: CPD Learning

34 Talking Heads

Neil Peacock gives an overview of the crucial role air handling plays and what to look for in choosing equipment

Professor Nashwan Dawood believes that machine learning can be used to take some of the inaccuracies out of predicting the actual energy use of buildings

Follow us, ‘like us’ or visit us online to keep up to date with all the latest energy news and events www.eibi.co.uk MARCH 2022 | ENERGY IN BUILDINGS & INDUSTRY | 03

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Editor’s Opinion

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www.eibi.co.uk

Long-term security

B

y the time you read this I’m hoping the

in years. The European Union has to work fast to

Perhaps some kind of agreement has

to no more than 15-20 per cent. In the short term

situation in Ukraine will have improved.

brought the senseless war to some kind of halt, if only temporary. But as I write indiscriminate attacks on civilians and even a nuclear plant dominate the headlines.

The actions of one crazy individual have

changed the landscape of Europe. The World Bank had committed $7.9bn to help develop Ukraine’s

draw up a plan to cut dependence on Russian gas there will be pressure to increase gas storage with

imports from the US and Qatar during the summer to avoid a winter crisis later this year. In addition,

Germany and Belgium will doubtless reconsider

delaying or cancelling the closure of nuclear plants.

Sadly, there may be a return to more use of coal.

In the long term, the primary focus should be a

economy since the 2014 revolution. That money

massive deployment of clean energy technologies

economic reforms including privatisation in the

with programmes to roll out utility-scale storage

has helped the country institute wide-ranging

energy and banking sectors. In short, Ukraine has become a thriving, democratic country, perhaps envied and despised by Putin.

Whatever the outcome our relationship with

Russia has will have changed for ever or at

least for many decades. Despite the warnings of Russia’s intent for many years the west has

become complacent as far as energy has become concerned. And we will pay a high price, in every way for many years to come.

The belated realisation of the risks of over-

dependence on Russian energy creates

opportunity to take more significant action on

European energy security than there has been

including renewables. This should go hand in hand solutions. Not to mention the acceleration of the development of a hydrogen economy.

Alongside, Governments should mandate

immediate and annual reductions in energy

consumption per unit of GDP and pass obligations to both public and private sectors. Among all the initiatives we require for greater energy security energy efficiency is the one sector that should

require no lead from Government. The technology is out there ready to be deployed. Energy prices are not going down. Energy efficiency wins on cost, environment and security.

MANAGING EDITOR

Mark Thrower

The EiBI Team Editorial

MANAGING EDITOR Mark Thrower

Tel: 01483 452854 Email: editor@eibi.co.uk Address: P. O. Box 825, Guildford GU4 8WQ

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THIS MONTH’S COVER STORY

The Waterfront Pub & Bar, at Barton Marina in Staffordshire, is on track to significantly reduce its energy bill and cut its annual carbon emissions by approximately 10 tonnes following the installation of a SolarEdge rooftop solar PV system. Originally, a six-year return on investment (ROI) period had been forecast for this project. However, based on the performance of the system, this has since been reduced to five years. Further, the owners have taken the decision to install additional SolarEdge solutions on the Marina Office & Café.

See page 21 for more details Photo courtesy of SolarEdge

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04 | ENERGY IN BUILDINGS & INDUSTRY | MARCH 2022

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News Update

For all the latest news stories visit www.eibi.co.uk

China to impose set five-year cuts targets

China’s biggest energy consuming industries must meet certain minimum standards by 2025, according to a new national Government circular.

Beijing’s announcement of fiveyear consumption reduction targets for all of the most energy-intensive industries is intended to decrease fuel wastage, and to drive the reduction of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. It is likely to spur considerable industry consolidation, analysts conclude.

According to a joint circular published by officials overseeing industrial development and environmental and energy policies, higher energy efficiency standards have been set for companies in 17 different sectors ranging from oil refining to non-ferrous metals smelting. Every site involved with steel or cement manufacturing, coalto-chemicals, aluminium smelting – all among the country’s biggest carbon dioxide emitting industries – will be forced to meet improved minimum standards by 2025.

Companies whose energy efficiencies are below the minimum standards are urged to install advanced equipment and adopt new technology such as recycling of waste heat, according to the circular, issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Currently, it is reckoned that up to 40 per cent of capacity fails to do so.

Those that have difficulties meeting these standards before the deadline should be phased out through marketbased means, the circular added.

Analysts expect the biggest players to gain market share from the phasing out of the weakest players, which will not have the financial resources to make the facility upgrades.

Besides minimum standards targets, a far higher proportion of the industries’ capacity will need to attain a series of industry-specific energy efficiency benchmarks, all substantially higher than current minimum regulations. The share of capacity meeting the highest benchmarks in the cement, steel and aluminium sectors will be lifted to 30 per cent by 2025 At the end of 2020 it was reckoned that as little as 4 per cent met these standards.

China’s steel and cement sectors are each responsible for about a sixth of the carbon dioxide emissions within the country, which is aiming to peak carbon emissions by 2030, and become carbon-neutral by 2060 to help fight global climate change.

RUNNING COSTS ALMOST A THIRD MORE

Heat pump ‘costing more than a boiler’ The annual cost of running a heat pump in the average home is now around £1,251 this year. That is 27 per cent more than running a traditional gas boiler.

Bills are soaring due to the rising energy price cap, which limits how much suppliers can charge for gas and electricity. They will increase by 54 per cent next month, meaning the average home will be paying £1,971 over a year. This means gas boilers will cost £400 more to run than previously. But they are still hundreds of pounds cheaper than using a heat pump, new analysis has found.

The cost of heating the average home with a new gas boiler will climb from £584 to £984, according to analysis of Ofgem figures by the Energy and Utilities Alliance trade body. Meanwhile, the cost of the equivalent amount of heat generated by a heat pump running at permitted efficiency levels will rise from £919 to £1,251. This means that an average home heated using traditional means, such as a gas boiler, should be saving roughly £267 over the course of a year, despite seeing a bigger rise in bills. But they would emit around 1,415kg more carbon over the year than heat pump users, the EUA said.

For larger homes the cost difference is even more dramatic.

The cost of running a heat pump over a year in a five-bedroom house will increase from April from £1,301

to £1,773. Meanwhile, the cost of heating the same house with a gas boiler would increase from £787 to £1,352, some £421 less than a heat pump.

The Prime Minister has vowed to wean British households off natural gas as part of his pledge to hit net zero by 2050. By 2025 builders are due to be banned from fitting conventional gas boilers in new-build homes. There are also plans by 2035 to ban every household from buying a new boiler.

Over 2m new boilers are now installed each year. Currently around 30,000 heat pumps are installed per year but the Government wants 600,000 heat pumps to be installed each year by 2028.

Installations come at a considerable cost. Purchasing and installing a heat pump can typically cost between £12,000 to £15,000 – as opposed to around £2,000 for a high efficiency gas condensing boiler.

Poorly insulated and drafty homes also lower a heat pump’s efficiency, raising running costs and carbon emissions. This means households may have to spend additional money on upgrading to ensure their heat pump runs effectively.

For older and listed homes costs can be far higher, with some homeowners incurring costs of more than £50,000 for the insulation, excavation and new radiators necessary for a ground source pump to work effectively.

TONY KAY 1935-2022 On 29th January the energy efficiency industry lost a much-loved and respected figure, Tony Kay, the executive chairman of DANLERS Ltd. He was 86.

Tony gained a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Mathematics from Manchester University in 1956.

In his early career, Tony joined the aircraft industry, working in engineering research with Avro.

He then moved on to various roles in production management and quality assurance management, including positions with the telecoms company STC. In 1971 Tony founded Home Automation Limited - designing and manufacturing dimmer switches and other lighting controls. Known for his innovation, Tony won many awards

for his products, and his remote-control dimmers were featured on the BBC programme “Tomorrow’s World.”

In 1991 Tony founded a

new electronics design and manufacturing company, DANLERS Limited – mainly specialising in energy saving lighting controls. In 2010, the company won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation.

Tony was extensively involved with the British Standards Institute (BSI), the British Electro-technical and Allied Manufacturers’ Association (BEAMA) and the Energy Services and Technology Association (ESTA) – working on issues around mains signalling, electronic switches, single phase products, energy saving lighting controls and more.

He will be sorely missed and remembered by all those who knew him, for the energy and commitment he put into everything he did, and for his enthusiasm for telling jokes!

06 | ENERGY IN BUILDINGS & INDUSTRY | MARCH 2022

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News Update

For all the latest news stories visit www.eibi.co.uk

ARCHITECTS WANT NATIONAL PROGRAMME OF INSULATION

In Brief

Call to insulate draughty 1930s homes UK architects are calling for England’s draughty “interwar suburbs” to be insulated as a key part of national efforts to reach net-zero emissions.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has calculated that simply by installing full insulation, double- or triple-glazing and gas boiler replacements in 3.3m interwar homes in England, this would cut the country’s overall CO2 emissions by 4 per cent.

The professional body is calling for a national programme that it says will cost £38bn, a figure that far exceeds current government estimates. RIBA believes the works could well prove far cheaper, simply because the repetitive designs of the terraced and semi-detached homes should allow for economies of scale in a mass rollout. It also foresees savings of more than £500 a year in energy bills for an average household in many cases.

Government statistics currently estimate that 19m of the UK’s 29m homes have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of band D or below. It has pledged that all homes should reach an energy rating of B and

C and above by 2035.

But RIBA expresses growing fears this target will not be met without a dedicated effort to rapidly accelerate the build out of energy efficiency improvements through grants for households and an accompanying skills programme for installers.

The RIBA manifesto came out just as the CEO of the official Climate Change Committee, Chris Stark, reiterated his calls for the government to strengthen its domestic energy efficiency policies.

He told BBC TV News that the government’s policy on insulation is currently “very poor,” adding that ministers do need to provide “a sharper incentive for most people to make these investments in improving the energy efficiency of the home that they live in.” Residential insulation sales have fallen by almost 90 per cent over the past ten years.

The Scottish government has set up a £300m Heat Network Fund to support the development and rollout of zero emission heat networks.

The Heat Network Fund will be available to public and private sector bodies looking to heat multiple buildings from a centralised source.

The new fund takes over from the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme and is part of the overall £1.8bn committed to decarbonise heat in buildings.

“By the end of this decade, we aim to have switched over 1m homes and the equivalent of 50,000 nondomestic buildings from fossil fuels to zero-emissions heating,” said Patrick Harvie, Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings.

Local authorities get £67m upgrade fund

Solar installations soar by over a third in 2021 New figures from Solar Energy UK show that 2021 saw the strongest growth of solar PV capacity since 2015, with 730MW installed around the UK. This represents a 36 per cent increase on 2020. The total installed capacity in the UK is now 14.6GW, up 5.3 per cent on 2020.

There were nearly 67,000 solar PV and solar thermal installations accredited by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme last year, far outperforming the number of heat pumps.

Each of the three market segments – residential rooftop, commercial scale and ground mount – have grown steadily outside any subsidy structure.

Solar Energy UK believes this reflects homeowner, business and investor confidence.

In 2021, 369MW of onsite solar was installed in the rooftop sector, the highest total in six years, when 869MW of capacity was built. Although the 2015 number is higher, there were significant subsidies available at the time.

New growth in the rooftop sector is fully subsidy-free.

Scotland sets up £300m heat network fund

The government has announced the first tranche of funding under the £950m Home Upgrade Grant (HUG), with £67m going to local authorities across England to improve lowincome, off-gas grid households.

Grants will pay for energy efficiency measures such as wall and roof insulation as well as new low-carbon heating systems, thermostats and room heating controls. Works are expected to be completed by the end of March 2023.

This round of funding will go to 22 local authorities in England. The worst performing homes, ranging from Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Bands D to G, are eligible to receive upgrades under HUG. High gas prices are believed to have helped stimulate the rooftop market, with commercial energy buyers installing onsite solar to protect themselves against the volatility of buying electricity based on fossil fuels.

In total, there is now more than 5GW of residential, commercial and industrial rooftop solar capacity installed in the UK. The association expects a number of recent developments to further stimulate the solar market in the coming years, including the Future Homes Standard, to be implemented

in 2025, and the removal of unfair tax treatment for businesses installing onsite solar renewable energy generation.

Solar Energy UK chief executive Chris Hewett, said: “2021 was the year the UK’s solar industry came of age. We are now seeing stable, sustained growth across the sector.

More and more consumers and businesses are investing in solar because they know it is a proven way to cut their energy bills and carbon emissions. It is also now a cheap way to charge EVs and decarbonise heating.”

Controls supplier celebrates 25 years

Prefect Controls has recently celebrated 25 years of supplying commercial providers of rooms, student accommodation, hotels etc, where the excessive use of heating energy by guests was a real problem.

From what is now considered a very basic timer control, installed in 400 rooms at the University of East London, Prefect has more than 30,000 rooms connected through Irus, it’s central control system, and many thousand more rooms controlled locally using their ecostat2 range.

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News Update

For all the latest news stories visit www.eibi.co.uk

SMEs ‘lack resources to act on climate

A survey from the SME Climate Hub has revealed the barriers small and medium sized businesses face as they look to reduce their emissions, with 68 per cent saying they lack the resources to act.

Nearly 200 members of the SME Climate Hub were surveyed, with 80 per cent saying they consider emissions reduction a high priority.

SMEs are often suppliers to larger companies, providing the services, products and resources that create the corporation’s end product. When a corporation has a large carbon footprint, much of that may actually stem from small businesses in their supply chain, making up the category known as Scope 3 emissions.

According to CDP, supply chain emissions are 11.4 times higher than operational emissions.

In the near-term, SMEs are making efforts to cut their greenhouse gas emissions through reductions to energy consumption and waste (82 per cent), employee education (64 per cent), and upgrades to facilities and equipment (52 per cent). However, only 60 per cent of the SMEs in this category have a long-term emissions reduction plan in place.

Leeds heating network approved for extension

Leeds city councillors have approved plans to invest £7.2m extending the city’s district heating network by 2,500m so that more buildings can benefit from low carbon heating. Five new extensions will see the Leeds PIPES district heating network expand into new areas of the city.

The £47m Leeds PIPES network supplied 13,900MWh of low carbon heat in 2021 and is on track to become one of the UK’s largest heat networks.

The council has identified at least nine sites that will be able to connect because of the approved extensions, potentially using another 11,600MWh of sustainable heat every year.

By using heat and energy recovered from non-recyclable waste at the Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility (RERF) to provide hot water to buildings in the city, the network offers a reliable and lower carbon alternative to traditional fossil fuel-powered heating.

The scheme currently supplies heat recovered from the waste of around 10,700 Leeds households.

Buildings and new developments near the network can choose to connect at any time.

CONSTANT WORLDWIDE MONITORING

UK satellites set to pinpoint energy waste A flotilla of British-built heat-sensing satellites is to be launched into Earth’s orbit to pinpoint badly insulated buildings across the planet.

Seven thermal-imaging probes are being constructed to play a key role in the battle against climate change by showing how homes, offices and cities can be made more energy efficient.

Guildford, Surrey-based British space company Satellite Vu reckons that the first of its heat-sensing satellites will be carried aloft early next year on a Falcon 9 rocket, the launcher operated by Elon Musk’s Space X company.

A further six probes will be put into orbit over the next two or three years. Some may be launched from spaceports now under construction in Cornwall and on Shetland.

The aim of Satellite Vu’s programme is to create a fleet of probes that will be able to carry out a constant, worldwide survey measuring heat emanating from buildings. This will be achieved using high-definition infrared radiation detectors that will show precisely where buildings are leaking

significant levels of energy.

“Our satellites are going to be fitted with unique infrared cameras that can measure heat emissions from any building on the planet,” said Anthony Baker, Satellite Vu’s chief executive.

“At present, it is only possible to make broad surveys of heat being emitted in a neighbourhood. Our satellites will

be fitted with super-high-resolution detectors, which will allow them to study individual buildings and show how much heat is escaping from them.

“We will provide the data that will show companies, governments and local authorities across the world where they need to act, and how they can cut their energy bills.”

ADE members call for VAT on retrofit projects to be scrapped

A letter has been sent to the Chancellor calling for a scrapping of VAT on energy efficiency measures similar to that of new build projects.

Initiated by the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), the letter is signed by 23 industry stakeholders, including 16 ADE members.

It states that maintaining the current 20 per cent VAT on products required to carry out energy efficiency retrofits to existing homes acts as a disincentive to carry out energy efficiency upgrades.

The ongoing energy price crisis has magnified the need for the UK to improve the energy efficiency of its building stock. The letter argues that energy efficiency solutions are an effective way the UK can work to future-proof the warmth, health and comfort of its citizens.

The letter also argues that the

removal of VAT would act as a major stimulus to the market. It is estimated it would create 42,000 extra full-time equivalent construction jobs and an additional 53,000 jobs in the wider economy over five years, in turn reducing fuel costs for consumers during an era of soaring energy prices.

Increased demand for retrofitting might also serve the UK’s green retail finance sector by increasing lenders’ confidence in consumer demand for energy efficiency and paving the way for further decarbonisation-focused projects.

CEO of the ADE, Lily Frencham, said:

“Retrofitting the UK’s inefficient homes will require public and private investment. Zero rating VAT is a simple incentive to increase private investment that works with the market for home renovation.

“It would simplify a complex system and result in a net gain for the UK economy, as well as improving the UK’s housing stock and enabling more families to enjoy warm and healthy homes – ultimately, by failing to act on this, the government is missing a significant opportunity to deliver on net zero compliant buildings.”

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THE WARREN REPORT

03.2022

The power of the stick to change behaviour

A market shift is underway in the rental homes sector since Government legislation mandated that all such properties must have an EPC rating of at least C from 2025

E

ffective energy-saving programmes need three mutually supportive facets to succeed. As does getting donkeys moving.

In the case of donkeys, the initiatives required can be described simply as: • carrots, to encourage greater action; • sticks, to enforce greater action; and • tambourines, to alert the donkey into taking action.

At the start of the century, UK energy policy makers seemed to understand this symbiosis. Grants programmes were combined with tighter minimum energy consumption standards. Together with public information drives, these led to regular year-on-year drops in overall consumption of fuel. Between 2005 and 2015, final consumption of all types of fuel had dropped by 16.2 per cent, from 159,676 kilotonnes of oil equivalent{ktoe} to 137,430ktoe.The biggest sectoral drop was in natural gas, down 32.8 per cent within ten years.

Subsequently, grants programmes have almost vanished. Witness the subsequent 90 per cent drop in household insulation measures.

Multi-billion long-term programmes like Green Homes Grants come and go after a few months.

Government surreptitiously scraps its much-heralded Energy Efficiency Deployment Office. It blocks the Zero Carbon Homes timetable. It stops appointing Ministers with special responsibility for energy efficiency.

So silent is the Government now

Andrew Warren is chairman of the British Energy Efficiency Federation

Building societies are offering lower mortgage rates to landlords buying more energyefficient properties about the desirability of energy saving that it is seldom even whispered as a potentially valuable response to forthcoming price hikes.

So, few carrots. Tepid tambourines.

What is there left to stimulate we donkeys into action? Do not despair.

There seems a growing appreciation

of the value of sticks to ensure greater energy efficiency. Much is made of the enormously powerful effect that tightening minimum energy consumption standards has achieved in the products sector. From commercial refrigerators via washing machines to industrial pumps and lighting outlets, all are now way more energy efficient than in 2000.

It was in these sectors that the concept of producing consumerfriendly labelling from A (great) to G (dreadful) first evolved - and is still improving. Back in 2005, the first Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) were issued. Initially dismissed as uninteresting bureaucratic bumf, these simple categories have gradually moved into common parlance. Estate agents now automatically provide the rating details in every advertisement. Solicitors now require details to be available before conveyancing processes can progress. Academic surveys now conclude that improving a home’s energy grade increases its sales value – not often by a large percentage, but sufficiently to reward vendors who spend money on prior upgrading.

Tenants not told about EPCs

Initially, everybody rather forgot that EPCs were relevant to the rental sector as well. Freedom of Information surveys disclosed that only a minority of tenants ever were told about any EPC rating before moving in, frequently because the landlord hadn’t bothered to acquire an EPC, or because the result was so bad they didn’t want to draw attention to it.

No longer. Many - sadly not yet all - local authorities do check up on recently let properties, and take action against recalcitrants. Such actions were stimulated by initiatives taken under the May government, outlawing the letting of F and G rated properties.

The present government is determined to go further. It proposes to ensure that by 2025 all new rental agreements must be for properties that have an EPC rating of at least a C. This commitment is already shaping investor buying behaviour.

Additionally, all existing lets are due to be improved to a C standard by 2028.

Threats of fines of up to £20,000 for missed deadlines are being mooted, well over double current fine sizes for transgressors.

While the proposals remain at the consultation stage, many landlords are already hedging their bets, and scrambling to buy energy-efficient properties to let out. So far this year, the share of homes bought by investors with an EPC rating of A-C is running at 50 per cent, the highest figure on record. That is up from 39 per cent in 2021 and 33 per cent in 2020.

In London, the proportion is now 66 per cent.

This uplift has been driven by two factors. First, landlords have bought more energy-efficient homes where improvement works have already been done. Second, there has been a shift towards buy-to-let investors purchasing newer homes, particularly flats, built within the last decade.

Aneisha Beveridge of estate agents Hamptons, said: “Given it will prove impossible for all homes to secure an EPC rating of at least a C without significant cost, it’s likely to mean older homes will become considerably less attractive to landlords.”

Investors keen to get ahead of the incoming rules have been buoyed by a growing number of banks and building societies offering lower mortgage rates to landlords buying more energy-efficient properties. Eight more lenders are offering these green mortgages to landlords since August last year, according to Angus Stewart of Property Master, a buy-to-let broker.

He said: “Lenders are now willing to offer landlords preferential mortgage rates if they are buying a property with a higher EPC rating, so we are seeing an increase in investors doing just that.

These landlords are saving on their finance costs and avoiding having to do work on properties they are buying now, to make sure they meet these requirements when the regulations change in 2025.”

Carrots and tambourines may be in short supply right now. Moving to band E only affected around 200,000 of the least efficient buy-to-let properties. But moving to band C must improve well over 2m properties. Sticks work. The Government must stick with them. 

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Smart Buildings

Frank Bakker is product Manager – smart energy management at SolarEdge

SolarEdge’s design flexibility enabled TU Wien to create what is believed to be the first energy-plus commercial highrise building

Pull together towards independence Frank Bakker examines how integrated photovoltaics can play an important role on the road to making buildings not only smart but also energy independent

A

s the world is moving towards sustainability and energy independence, so too building architecture must begin to change to incorporate these values. Now we are seeing net-zero buildings and green building rating systems, such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). In parallel, commercial buildings and homes are becoming smarter. This has opened the way towards managing energy in a more efficient manner.

One of the ways to better manage energy is to design buildings that require less energy, for example by using passive ventilation techniques, passive solar energy, double/triple pane glass and thermal mass material so that the requirement for HVAC units is reduced and sometimes even eliminated. There are many other areas in which building designs can decrease the energy requirements of a building, from energy-efficient lighting, passive lighting, water conservation, and more. Yet, no matter how much a home or a

commercial building is able to reduce its energy requirements, it is nearly impossible to completely eliminate energy demand. However, the building can become its own energy generator.

One of the most promising aspects of solar energy versus other types of renewable energy, is that it is designed to be a distributed power source.

Almost anybody with a roof has the potential to install their own energy generation system. It truly places power into the hands of the people.

For commercial buildings with large rooftops, as well as homes, adding a photovoltaic (PV) system can be an excellent way to produce the amount of energy that is consumed on-site.

However, for high-rise office buildings and apartment buildings this can be more difficult.

For instance, the University of Technology Vienna (TU Wien), as part of its green building initiative, renovated its former chemistry building with the goal of becoming the first energy-plus commercial

high-rise building. This was a lofty goal as high-rises are particularly challenging for PV to meet energy demand since roof space is limited compared to energy consumption. To overcome this challenge, innovative design planning was required, and a building-integrated system was conceived. Leveraging SolarEdge’s design flexibility was fundamental in increasing system production and size by allowing the entire building’s surface to be covered in solar modules, while also optimising each individual panel. At the time of completion, the system was thought to be Austria’s largest integrated PV site. The direct environmental benefits of the PV system were calculated to be equal to >54,000 kg of CO2 emissions saved, which is the equivalent of nearly 200 trees planted or nearly 420,000 lightbulbs powered for a day.

Solar is the first step

Adding solar energy to a building’s energy mix is a crucial aspect in making a building more energy independent. However, it is only the first step. The next is improving the management of that energy in order to increase self-consumption. This is because energy usage does not always align with the energy generation of a PV system. As such, there are two ways that the energy can be managed to overcome this inconsistency. The first technique is energy storage and the second is consumption shifting.

Energy storage is an essential part of smart energy management as it stores energy when it is produced for consumption at a later time instead

of either limiting energy production or feeding it into the grid. With PV plus storage systems, the inverter is responsible for managing battery charge and discharge patterns to meet consumption needs and reduce the amount of power purchased from the grid.

Shifting energy consumption is another form of energy management that can also increase self-consumption. This technique combines the technology of smart buildings with PV energy. By merging these two technologies, smart energy management solutions can automatically use a PV system’s excess power to increase solar energy usage, help lower electricity bills, increase energy independence, and provide greater convenience. Devices and appliances, such as immersion heaters, lighting, fans, and pool pumps, can be controlled by smart energy management solutions that include AC switches with a meter and plug-in sockets with a meter, and dry contact switches. With the immersion heater, excess PV energy can be directed towards water heating, which is a low-cost form of energy storage. While the other devices allow appliances, such as pool pumps, fans, cold storage, thermostats, and lighting, to be remotely controlled and utilised during high PV production for increased selfconsumption.

In addition to increasing energy independence, smart energy management allows for a simple user experience when combined into one integrated energy management and monitoring platform. This enables a more streamlined smart energy and building management process to reduce operation and maintenance costs. As the technology advances, we will continue to see more opportunities to further integrate it into making buildings more energy efficient. For example, weather and irradiance forecasting integrated into energy management systems can help ensure more efficient planning of building heating, or personalized profiles and thermostat controls that can help increase comfort without additional resources. Combining these types of technology with architectural designs can help our buildings exist in better harmony within their surroundings and environment. 

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Smart Buildings

Will Darby is managing director of Carlo Gavazzi

Any connected device has the potential to be hacked. An EMS could be a vulnerable area

Don’t let the hackers win

Will Darby outlines the threats and explains what can be done to ensure mission critical facilities remain secure while minimising their energy usage

W

hen the operation of a hospital, an airport or a data centre is critical, then the systems, equipment and electrical infrastructure that support its operation are mission critical too.

The term ‘mission critical’ applies to any system, equipment or activity whose failure could result in the complete collapse of facility’s operations. Depending on the facility, the consequences of failure can be devastating. If the cooling in a data centre fails, for example, it will cause the IT servers to overheat; if the lights fail in a hospital operating theatre, the surgeon will be prevented from operating; and if an airport’s security system were to fail, travel from that airport could come to a standstill.

There are numerous factors that can affect the operation of mission critical systems, including accidental damage and network failures, but the factor increasingly of concern is cyber-attacks. The UK government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2021, reports that four in ten businesses (39 per cent) reported having cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months.

Any connected device has the potential to be hacked. A facility’s Energy Management System (EMS), for example, will have been installed

to maximise energy efficiency while ensuring occupant comfort and optimum operating conditions.

In the past this would have been a standalone system. Now, the majority of EMS are integrated with a facility’s IT infrastructure to enable it to optimise the control of heating, cooling and lighting systems with usage patterns. An EMS system could, for example, be connected directly to the internet, the company’s IT networks and a facility’s wireless networks, thus opening up the possibility that criminals could use the system as a back door to all connected systems critical to the functioning of the facility.

Multiple sources of attack

A cyber-attack can come from various sources: it could come from an aggrieved former employee out for revenge, for example. Or from a rival company looking to sabotage a competitor’s operations. It could be activists looking to disrupt an organisation they take issue with or it could even come from a bored teenager looking to hone their hacking skills.

Advanced malware is a type of attack that is increasingly common in control systems connected to the internet; this malicious software infiltrates weak systems and

hardware (often legacy systems) and then spreads itself to other systems. Whatever the form of the attack, once in, cyber criminals could potentially do a huge amount of damage and even bring the facility to a crashing halt.

It is important to remember that any facility is only as secure as its weakest link; secure software installed on an un-secure PC results

It’s important to remember that any facility is only as secure as its weakest link in an un-secure system. Most IT departments are diligent in applying best practice to networked devices for which they have a responsibility.

However, EMS systems are often outside the responsibility of the IT team, instead being the responsibility of the operational team. As such, they might have a weaker level of protection than that of the IT systems used for business purposes.

IEC 62443 is an international series of standards on security for industrial communication networks and systems. The standards define five levels of security ranging from Level 0, “no protection required”, through to Level 4, “prevent the unauthorised disclosure of information to an entity actively searching for it using sophisticated means with extended resources, application specific skills and high motivation.”

The standard divides the industrial communication industry into operators, integrators and controls manufacturers. Each has a role to play in ensuring an installation is secure. A controls manufacturer, for example, must develop products that are secure; the system designer/ integrator must make design choices based on developing the most secure system; the installer must work to maximise cyber security throughout system deployment; while the end-user must operate the system according to best practice, such as the avoidance of default passwords.

In order to keep ahead of cyber criminals, the EMS must be engineered in line with best practice.

That means: • limiting the size of the attacker’s target by minimising the number of system components; • ensuring these components have been developed and manufactured in line with best practice by a manufacturer keeping pace with evolving cybersecurity threats; • ensuring the manufacturer adopts development practices that put cybersecurity top of the agenda when developing new products; and • ensuring that products are tested and assessed as being cyber secure by a respected, third-party cybersecurity testing laboratory.

To help minimise the vulnerability of an EMS system, Carlo Gavazzi has introduced a security enhanced IoT gateway and controller. Its Universal Web Platform 3.0 SE has been developed to sit at the heart of an ecosystem of over 200 Carlo Gavazzi meters, sensors and actuators, which it links at both field and cloud levels to other systems in the EMS architecture.

There is no such thing as absolute security. However, organisations that use an EMS designed and installed with security enhanced products, which is then operated and maintained in a secure manner using best practice, will have done all they can to help protect the manufacturing process from attack. 

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Smart Buildings

Paul Wetherfield is vice president of the Building Controls Industry Association

Skilled engineers are needed to understand the complex technology controlling modern buildings

Get trained to stay smart

Paul Wetherfield discusses the ways in which the Building Controls Industry Association’s focus on training and apprenticeships is helping to tackle the skills shortage

A

s the levels of product innovation continue to reach ever higher levels, the skills to select and integrate products need to be sharper than ever. In recent years the BCIA has been leading the charge in ensuring there is enough talent coming into the building controls sector to deliver the buildings of tomorrow – today.

The good news is we are potentially sitting on the crest of a wave in terms of a new generation of skilled engineers in the making. Today’s school leavers are abundantly aware of the challenges facing the world they are going to inherit from their parents and grandparents and an increasing number of them are looking for opportunities to make a difference.

It is now up to organisations like the BCIA and its members to make the building energy management systems (BEMS) sector attractive to anyone looking to embark on a new career.

Not only that, we also have to provide the appropriate training pathways that ensure the engineers of the future have the necessary levels of knowledge and competency to meet the demands of a job that is constantly changing with the advancement in technology.

An advantage we have now is that with the abundance of ‘smart’ technology and its integration into the built environment means the BEMS sector is perhaps not considered as ‘niche’ as it once was.

Last year, in an interview to mark

the BCIA’s 30th anniversary, Roger Woodward, one of the founder members, explained how the organisation had evolved into a “significantly more mature body compared to what it started out as.” The evolution that Roger described has been vital in transforming the BCIA into a body that can influence key decisions in industry and government. With Technical Guides, Working Groups, Apprenticeships and Training Courses just some of the things the BCIA now has to offer, it has become a vital resource for young engineers now and in the future and also to help inform people of what the industry is about.

Challenges for engineers

In 2021, after more than four years of hard work by the Trailblazer Employer

Switched on: the BEMS sector is no longer considered as niche as it was

Group, the BCIA launched its Level 4 Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) Controls Engineer Apprenticeship in partnership with training provider Group Horizon. With commercial buildings representing one of the largest capital expenses for businesses, and building owners and managers constantly looking for ways to make them more efficient and sustainable, the challenge for the BEMS controls engineer is knowing how to achieve this level of efficiency.

This Apprenticeship provides the answer, offering a balance of onthe-job assessments and technical training which covers all aspects of the industry. The training programme is delivered on the apprentice’s company site and through classroom and/or online learning sessions. It can take up

to 36 months to complete.

The apprenticeship isn’t just for school leavers either. The programme presents an ideal way for someone to get into a different industry if they are looking for a new challenge. In the anniversary interview with Roger Woodward, George Belfield, who was born the same year the BCIA was formed, explained how becoming a BMS engineer provided the “technical challenge” he was looking for after working for a local council. He also emphasised how the BCIA’s courses helped on his new career path, saying: “Having those courses as a start point provides a fantastic grounding in BMS and helps you get the most out of your work experiences as well.”

Career changes are becoming more and more common and the lockdown periods in the last two years have even forced many people who have suddenly found themselves out of work to look for a fresh start.

It was suggested in a feature recently published in EiBI (see January 2022, page 34) that the BCIA’s apprenticeship scheme had ‘stagnated’. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are positive early signs that it will be a tremendous success. The first two programmes began before Christmas and were fully booked up and at the time of writing spaces for the third cohort are filling up fast. The feedback has so far been very good, and some of the apprentices have described their early experiences on the programme.

Zach Stanley of Kendra Energy said: “I was thoroughly impressed in how much help and education I was actually getting, and how we are getting our modules taught to us in blocks in order for us to better familiarise ourselves with everything and we are able to apply it in the workplace on a daily basis. I find that helps a lot more because I need to go over things many times before it actually sinks in. All in all, I am very happy to have chosen this industry and I am excited to see what happens in the future.”

On successful completion of the programme, individuals will receive a BEMS Controls Engineer Apprenticeship at level 4. In addition, on completion of specific BCIA technical course modules individuals will receive the BCIA Technical Certificate and the BCIA Advanced Technical Certificate.

Individuals will also be eligible to apply for an Electrotechnical Certification Scheme (ECS) Building Controls card at Associate or Integrator Level (depending on their level of experience). 

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ESTA VIEWPOINT For further information on ESTA visit www.estaenergy.org.uk

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

George Barnes wouldn’t give back his electric car. But recent experiences have shown that careful planning and patience are needed to take those long journeys

I

recently made a 644-mile round trip from south Wales to the Lake District in an electric car with a relatively large 64kWh of battery life. It was certainly an experience from which I learned a lot about electric cars, the charging infrastructure and how I need to adapt my own travel habits.

So, first, the good stuff. The car itself was comfortable and handled like a charm. There is the benefit, of course, of friendlier fuel for the planet and your wallet. Charging off-peak at home, when the grid intensity is at its lowest is an absolute win, with often very low associated electricity generation emissions and next-to-no associated monetary costs (check your local grid intensity values for the best time to charge. Good sources are either the national grid ESO app or www. carbonintensity.org). It’s even better if you are the owner of a solar PV array.

To fully charge using a domestic 7kW charger during super off-peak and off-peak hours takes around nine hours and costs £5-7. These costs rise to between £10 and £15 if using a 50kW rapid charger while on the road (80 per cent charge in just over an hour).

The fully charged battery was

enough to do a good 220-230 miles of motorway driving, (when sticking to 70mph) which was over half the 322 miles. This means, if well planned, a trip from south Wales to the Lake District can be done in two charges and in around seven hours. That’s the same time it usually takes in a petrol alternative when factoring in comfort breaks.

But this is only the case if all chargers are working, and they are not occupied. And that is a big IF and a large AND, as I found out.

Market in its infancy

With the electric vehicle market in its relative infancy, there are many charging companies vying for a piece of the infrastructure pie. That’s great; we are rising to the challenge and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition. What’s not so great is that each of them requires a specific app or account to charge using their stations, whether that is Ecotricity, Genie (Engie), or Podpoint, to name a few. Unless you know this in advance these take a while to register for or download/sign up to, adding minutes to journey times, which may

George Barnes is chair of ESTA’s Independent Energy Consultants Group seem trivial but adds up when tired and six hours into your drive.

The second problem is that these charging points aren’t always in the best area for signal and downloading apps can be tiring and troublesome, if possible at all. And last, but by no means least, these apps just sometimes simply don’t work, which leaves you in a very tight squeeze, especially if battery time is low and you are scrambling around for a local charger within the radius of your ebbing battery life.

Why then, hasn’t an alternative

emerged, offering simple card tap payments? It has! In the form of “Polar” charging stations (other chargers are available). However, of the eight charging points used during the trip, only one station had such a charger.

Once pinpointed on the map these were very much exploited on both north and south legs of the journey.

Locating a good charging point isn’t a given. On multiple times during this single trip, we were left waiting for over 20 minutes for a charger. When coupled with an hour charging time at a minimum, these minutes really add up.

I can accept the relative lack of chargers. It’s an emerging technology and that’s to be expected. I can accept the fiddly non-intuitive charging approach. What I think is poor is the lack of working state of these chargers. Out of the eight charging points visited we found two nonfunctioning with a further two offering only limited functionality. That’s a quarter not working. How would the world function if a quarter of all petrol or diesel pumps didn’t work? If the technology is not there for full-scale fast chargers just yet, fine that’s understandable. But at least maintain the technology that does exist!

First and foremost, I must say I would never own an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine - not as cool as it sounds) vehicle again. The obvious plusses, for me, massively outweigh the negatives. Planet friendlier – check; cheaper running costs – check; smoother ride – check; and enjoyment factor – check! The relative infrastructure problems would however make me question my mode of travel on longer journeys.

This particular experience was not enough to put me off long-range electric vehicle travel using the current charging network, but it would make me think twice.

To conclude let’s finish with the important question. Is a long-range electric car journey practical? The short answer, allowing for current circumstances if you are on a timesensitive schedule, no. However, if you are well prepared, plan your route, and can enjoy a leisurely lunch along the way for an hour and a half, then yes, absolutely. But plan ahead or you will end up like me, depending on nondependable chargers, floundering in low-signal areas for an elusive bar of 3G, and wasting a whole lot of precious time. 

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Air Handling

Air Handling Systems

Neil Peacock, managing director Energy International (UK) Ltd

A

ir handling may be defined as the ‘science of moving air from one point to another’.

The question then, of course is, why would we do this? There are many uses of moving air in both industrial and building scenarios: • heating and cooling for comfort; • ventilation of living spaces; • fume extraction; • dust extraction; and • transfer of materials In its very simplest form, an air handling system could comprise a propeller type fan operating in open space, directing a flow of air at an object or objects. This could be to provide cooling or to dispel fumes or to promote burning. At the other end of the scale an air handling system could comprise many components such as inlet louvres, an air handling unit (AHU), fans, a complex ductwork system, control dampers, various types of terminal unit and outlet louvres etc.

If we need to categorise air handling systems it might be useful to consider them as: those related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning e.g. building related and those related to industrial applications such as fume

extraction and materials handling.

The most widely accepted and authoritative source of design criteria in the UK are the Chartered Institute of Building Services (CIBSE) guides.

Other sources of useful information include the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA), the UK Building Regulations and, of course the Energy Institute’s library.

The starting point in designing an air handling system is almost certainly going to be determining how much air flow is needed to match the task in hand. The task may include many things including: building ventilating; heating and cooling; toilet extract; kitchen extracts; wood chip transportation; exhaust fume removal; and pulverised coal transportation.

A decision then needs to be reached on what classification of pressure system (see later section) should be employed, low, medium or high.

This will depend to a large extent on, the type of task and the operating environment. A high-pressure system is not normally suited to a hotel or hospital where noise is a major consideration. A low-pressure system may not be appropriate for say dust

extraction from a saw mill where high velocities are required to carry the wood particles and to avoid any settling out that might create a fire or explosion risk.

Once we have determined how much air flow we need and what range of duct velocities we are going to work on we can calculate what size fan we need to deliver the air and overcome the pressure drop of the entire system.

Ductwork systems can be classified as low, medium, and high pressure. The table below, abstracted from the CIBSE Guide B, shows the pressure and velocity ranges which determine these pressure classifications: High-pressure systems permit smaller ductwork but result in greater friction pressure drop, requiring the fan to generate higher pressures and most likely greater noise generation.

Ductwork construction

In most industrial and building related air handling systems, ducts are used to carry the air being handled. There are many and various approaches to ductwork construction. The type of construction chosen will depend on numerous factors including:

Maximum positive and negative pressures and velocities for low, medium and high-pressure ductwork

System classifications

For details on how to obtain your Energy Institute CPD Certificate, see ENTRY FORM and details on page 20

Design static pressure (Pa)

Maximum air Velocity (m/s)

Maximum positive

Maximum negative

Low pressure

500

500

10

Medium pressure

1000

750

20

High pressure

2000

750

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Air Handling • • • • •

pressure; size; aesthetics; cost; and application.

High-pressure systems require stronger ducts to prevent the air from causing the ducting to physically move (vibrate) causing noise and potentially failure of the duct material through fatigue. High-pressure systems are often constructed in round duct work due to its high inherent stiffness.

Very large ducts may be constructed using building materials such as brickwork, concrete and woodwork.

Materials suitable for and commonly used in the construction of ductwork are: • galvanised steel; • black steel; • stainless steel; • aluminium; • glass reinforced plastic (GRP); • polypropylene; • polyester (textile or fabric ducting); and • polyvinyl chloride (PVC) Rectangular ducting is commonly used for low-pressure systems because: • it can fit well into the available space; • it can be easily connected to other air handling components such as heating and cooling coils and filters; and • branch connections can be made more easily than other cross sections.

Rectangular ducting is not generally used for high-pressure systems as it requires strengthening of the flat sides and needs to be sealed to make it suitable for this application.

Circular duct work can be constructed either by ‘roll up’ or ‘spirally wound’ in sheet metal. Manufacturers provide standard ranges of pressed and fabricated fittings which makes circular ducting more economical, particularly in low pressure systems. In addition, it is generally relatively easy to install, particularly straight, continuous runs of ductwork.

Circular ducting is preferable for high-pressure systems and for systems operating at high negative pressures. Additional stiffening rings may be necessary at high negative pressure.

Flat oval ducting offers the advantages of both circular and rectangular ductwork; e.g. low cost, good use of available space. Flat oval duct is suitable for both positive and negative pressure applications.

The definitive source of information on the construction of HVAC type duct work is DW144 produced by BESA. Virtually every commonly found air

Schematic of a typical air handling unit

handling system has at its core one or more fans. Fans are used to drive air around a system and to move air from one place to another.

There are several different types of fan and numerous sub types. Again, it is beyond the scope of this article to enter into too much detail on this subject. Fans probably justify their own CPD module. However, they generally share the following common components: • casing - stationary parts of the fan which guide air to and from the impeller; • guide vanes - a set of stationary vanes; and • impeller: the part of a fan which rotates and imparts movement to the air.

Basic types of fan

This article considers the basic types of fan: Axial-flow fans comprise an impeller in a cylindrical casing. Refinements may include guide vanes, fairings and expanders to improve their performance. These fans are of high efficiency, they may be staged or

Plastic rectangular ductwork is often used for low-pressure systems

placed in series and when fitted with guide vanes the aggregate pressure developed is proportional to the number of stages for a given volume. A two-stage fan may have contra rotating impellers.

Axial-flow fans tend to be noisy and are more generally to be found in industrial rather than building applications.

Bifurcated fans can handle atmospheres which may damage the fan motor, for instance: saturated and dust laden atmospheres, hot and/or corrosive gases. They are normally

direct drive with the motor isolated from the system air stream.

In a centrifugal fan air flows into the impeller axially, turns through a right angle within it and is discharged radially by centrifugal force. There are two main types: • forward-curved: the impeller has a relatively large number of short forward-curved blades. The air is impelled forward in the direction of rotation at a speed greater than the impeller tip speed.

• backward curved: the air leaves the impeller at a speed less than the impeller tip speed and the rotational speed for a given duty is relatively high. The impeller has blades of curved or straight form, inclined away from the direction of rotation.

Backward-curved fans are noted for their high efficiency and low noise.

They are typically used for general ventilation, dust collection where the fan is on the clean side of the dust collector, combustion air and drying.

Forward-curve fans are generally used where large volumes of air at relatively low pressures are required.

Typically used in HVAC applications.

Propeller fans comprise an impeller of two or more blades of constant thickness, usually of sheet steel, fixed to a centre boss and are designed for orifice or diaphragm mounting. They have high volumetric capacity, very low pressure development. The efficiency of propeller fans is low.

Cross-flow or tangential comprise a forward-curved centrifugal type impeller but with greatly increased blade length and the conventional inlets blocked off. The impeller runs in a half casing with conventional discharge but no inlet. Air is scooped inwards through the blade passages on the free side, but at the opposite side of the impeller, due to the influence of the casing, the air obeys the normal centrifugal force and flows out of the impeller and through the fan discharge. The discharge opening is generally narrow so the fan is not easily applicable to ducting but is well suited to fan coil units and electric space heaters.

In mixed-flow fans the passage of air through the impeller has both axial and radial components, hence the term mixed-flow. Mixed-flow fans are of high efficiency and can be designed for higher-pressure duties than axial flow fans.

Understanding the fan laws

In order to acquire a good knowledge of how fan design and application can influence energy efficiency it is essential to have some understanding of the fan laws:

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Air Handling The CIBSE publication ‘Improve life cycle performance of mechanical ventilation systems’ – CIBSE TM30: 2003viii covers this area in much detail.

In many building-related air handling systems, air handling units (AHU) will be found. These are ‘boxes’ containing various components that are required in HVAC applications.

An AHU may contain various components including: inlet grilles, fans, volume control and recirculation dampers, various heat exchangers and filters.

Control of air volume

• the inlet volume varies directly as the fan speed; • the fan total pressure and the fan static pressure vary as the square of the fan speed; • the power required to drive the fan impeller varies as the cube of the fan speed.

• the fan total pressure, the fan static pressure and the fan power all vary directly as the mass per unit volume of the air which in turn varies directly as the barometric pressure and inversely as the absolute temperature; • the inlet flow rate varies as the cube of the fan size; • the fan total pressure and the fan static pressure vary as the square of the fan size; and • the air power (total or static) and impeller power vary as the fifth power of the fan size.

Cube of the fan speed

The most important of these laws or rules from an energy efficiency perspective is the fact that the power required to drive the fan varies as the cube of the fan speed.

Therefore, for example, if the motor shaft speed is 100 rpm and its power is 10 kW, then: • increasing the shaft speed to 110rpm will increase the power to 10 x (110 / 100)3 = 13.3 kW; • decreasing the shaft speed to 90 rpm will reduce the power to 10 x (90

/ 100) = 7.3 kW As a result, optimising the systems to achieve small reductions in the motor shaft speed can have a substantial impact on the motor’s power requirements and energy consumption.

In general, energy is imparted to the air in an air handling system by a fan.

As the air travels through the system it loses energy due to the frictional losses exerted on it by the ductwork.

A very necessary component of designing an effective air handling system is being able to determine the pressure drops through the system.

This will enable the selection of the type and power of the fan/s.

As mentioned elsewhere the design of the ductwork system and other components such as grilles, dampers and heat exchangers will depend on factors including space, noise, and

economics.

Generally, the larger the ductwork etc. that is used the lower the pressure drop will be but the higher the capital cost of the system will be. Likewise, the smaller the system the higher the fan power and thus the running costs.

The UK Building Regulations set limits on the fan power that systems require. This is another important consideration in system design.

There are numerous possible approaches to pressure drop calculation. These range from a ‘first principles’ approach to using established empirical data and of course commercially available computer-based applications.

In addition to calculating the pressure losses in straight sections of ductwork account must also be made for grilles, dampers, bends, tees, heat exchangers, changes of section etc.

There are two main types of centrifugal fan: forward curved and backward curved

The control of the volume of air flowing in all or parts of an air handling system may be achieved in a number of ways: Dampers may be of either the butterfly or multi-leaf type. They may be adjusted manually in either fixed or variable mode. They may also be adjusted by a control motor actuator.

Butterfly (or single vane) dampers are usually best suited for open/closed or isolation duties as the sealing periphery of a single vane is minimal relative to the duct area.

Multi-vane (or louvre) dampers, offer very good flow control characteristics but are more expensive than butterfly dampers.

Controlling fan speed as a means of varying volume, where possible and practicable offers significant advantages over damper control in terms of energy use and noise.

The most popular type of electric motor is the squirrel cage induction motor. For many decades it has been easily possible to produce two or three speed motors by including extra windings.

To produce infinitely variable speed motor control inverters can be used with conventional induction motors.

Electronically commutated motors also allow energy-efficient, infinitely variable fan speed and are becoming popular in air handling units.

In buildings and industry air handling systems are very common. Among the many factors to consider are: • safety – e.g., will dust collect in the ductwork creating a fire or explosion risk; • effectiveness – will the system deliver air at the correct volume?; • noise – will the system make an unacceptable amount of noise?; • energy efficiency – has the duct design, fan selection and control strategy optimised energy use?; • aesthetics – does the system look good in its surroundings? e.g., underground duct, factory, pizzeria.

Careful design should be able to accommodate all these considerations. 

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SERIES 19 / Module 02 08

“Energy in Buildings and Industry and the Energy Institute are delighted to have teamed up to bring you this Continuing Professional Development initiative”

Refrigeration Air Handling

ENTRY ENTRYFORM FORM

MARK THROWER Managing Editor

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Questions Questions

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How to obtain a CPD accreditation from the Energy Institute This is the second moduleininthe thenineteenth nineteenthseries seriesand andfocuses focuses eighth module on Refrigeration. accompaniedby byaaset setofofmultiple-choice multiple-choice Air Handling. ItItisisaccompanied questions.

To qualify for a CPD certificate readers must submit at least eight of the ten sets of questions from this series of modules to EiBI for the Energy Institute to mark. Anyone achieving at least eight out of ten correct answers on eight separate articles qualifies for an Energy Institute CPD certificate. This can be obtained, on successful completion of the course and notification by the Energy Institute, FREE OF CHARGE for both Energy Institute members and non-members.

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11 Batteries 11 Energy Efficiency Legislation BEMS & Storage Batteries & Storage 22 Energy as a Service 22 Building Controls Refrigeration Energy as a Service 33 Water Management 33 Smart LED Technology Water Grids Management 44 Demand Side Response 44 Lighting District Heating DemandTechnology* Side Response 55 Drives & Motors 55 Heat Pumps* Air Conditioning Drives & Motors 66 Blockchain Technology 66 Metering & Monitoring* Behaviour Change Blockchain Technology 77 Compressed Air 77 Air Conditioning* Thermal Imaging Compressed Air 88 Energy Purchasing 88 Boilers Burners* Solar Thermal Energy&Purchasing Terms: in submitting your completed youChange* are indicating 99 Space Heating 99 answers Behaviour Smart Buildings Space Heating consent to Management EiBI’s holding and processing the personal data 10 Centre 10 Heat & Power* 10 Data Biomass Boilers 10 Combined Data Centre Management* you have provided to us, in accordance with legal bases set out

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20 24 | ENERGY IN BUILDINGS & INDUSTRY | SEPTEMBER MARCH 20202020

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Products in Action

Refurbed hotel equipped with over 1,000 sensors

Rooftop solar system cuts pubs energy bills, emissions

The Adare Manor hotel in County Limerick, Ireland, has been refurbished with the help of a building management system that features a range of SONTAY sensors.

Limerick based system integrator, Manutec Computerised Control Systems, selected over 1,000 Sontay sensing devices to provide the eyes and ears for the Tridium BMS used to monitor and control HVAC services DFURVV WKH HQWLUH KRWHO { As part of its extensive work on the BMS, Manutec selected various temperature, COǍ, relative humidity and CO sensors from Sontay along with differential pressure sensors DQG VZLWFKHV { The majority of Sontay products installed on the site are TT-1000 and GS-COǍ sensors. These space sensors are in various areas of the hotel and are used to accurately

The Waterfront Pub & Bar, at Barton Marina in Staffordshire, is on track to significantly reduce its energy bill and cut its annual carbon emissions by approximately 10 tonnes following the installation of a SOLAREDGE rooftop solar PV system. Originally, a six-year return on investment (ROI) period had been forecast for this project.

However, based on the performance of the system, this has since been reduced to five years. Further, the owners have taken the decision to install additional SolarEdge solutions on the Marina Office & Café.

Powered 100 per cent by electricity, the site’s high energy usage was exacerbated by increasing energy prices. The owners needed a PV system that would contribute the greatest savings to their electricity costs and remain visually pleasing.

Solar PV installer, Kembla, designed

monitor the temperature and COǍ levels.

The TT-341 and TT-PO immersion sensors and pockets are measuring the temperature of liquids in pipework while the TT-555 Flying Lead sensors are measuring the offcoil air temperature of each fan-coil unit.

a 40.5kWp system to make the most of the roof space and deliver the maximum output and savings. The system comprises 90 450W modules, upgraded to smart modules with SolarEdge power optimisers, and a 33.3kW three phase inverter.

The power optimisers are installed underneath each pair of modules to maximise the performance of each module in the system individually.

With the owners of The Waterfront keen to minimise operation and maintenance costs, a SolarEdge energy meter was added to the system to provide full visibility of the PV performance.

Heating Technology

Steve Sherman is managing director, Schwank UK

Schwank says its engineers have overcome problems with the unpredictable nature of hydrogen

Using hydrogen for industrial heating Hydrogen can be an unpredictable fuel. But Steve Sherman examines how hydrogen can be used safely for infrared instant heating in factories and public buildings

I

n its report “Hydrogen for Net Zero” published in November 2021, the Hydrogen Council claimed: “Hydrogen is central to reaching net zero emissions because it can abate 80 gigatons of CO2 by 2050.

Hydrogen has a central role in helping the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5ºC Celsius.”

The report also emphasised the practicality of hydrogen gas for energy networks: “Hydrogen is critical in enabling a decarbonised energy system. It facilitates the integration of renewably produced energy because hydrogen can store energy, provide resilience, and transport high volumes of energy over long distances via pipelines and ships.”

The belief in hydrogen as an important energy source of the future was shared by delegates at the European Hydrogen Days 2021 meeting in Brussels, including Schwank’s CEO and head of R&D Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Schlösser. These experts shared the opinion that only hydrogen can master the ambitious environmental goals of the coming years. As the energy carrier of the future, hydrogen could also take

advantage of storage and distribution via existing gas networks.

Recently, engineers in Cologne have come forward with a very exciting development, by producing a tube heater that runs exclusively on hydrogen gas.

Similarly to plaque heaters, tube heaters can offer excellent decentralised infrared heating systems for industrial and commercial applications. But their functioning principles are different. In the case of tube heaters, the combustion of the gas-air mixture takes place within a long steel tube. This tube heats up to approximately 580ºC and subsequently emits the infrared radiation.

Natural technology

The principle of infrared radiant heating operates similarly to the way that heat rays of the sun travel through the air without heating it. They only emit their energy – in other words, heat – when they fall on surfaces. Schwank infrared heaters use the same natural technology to heat large spaces such as factories, distribution centres and public buildings. The infrared rays are

converted into heat at the points where they fall on people and objects throughout the workplace.

With infrared gas radiant heaters, heating therefore takes place where it is required, making them remarkably energy efficient. The surfaces absorb the thermal energy and, in turn, re-emit it into the environment. This results in a balanced micro-climate made up of air and radiation heat.

With decentralised radiant heating systems, comfortable heat can be delivered to exactly where it is needed. For instance, in a warehouse or distribution centre, heating zones can be created, with spot heating generated for work stations without wasting energy where it is not required. This cuts the operating costs and reduces the carbon footprint of the building concerned.

The creation of a climate neutral heater operating exclusively on hydrogen gas has been a remarkable breakthrough for Schwank and was the result of intensive work at our Cologne laboratory. This work by our engineers, scientists and technicians was all the more impressive because the behaviour of hydrogen is unpredictable.

The difficulties of working with hydrogen are outlined by Gexcon Consulting: “Due to its flammability, buoyancy, its ability to embrittle metals and other properties that require engineering control, designing a hydrogen system that ensures its safe use can be a challenging process.

Awareness of hydrogen hazards is critical so that early precautions can be taken, such as designing a reliable hydrogen system. Precautions apply not only for hydrogen-powered vehicles and vessels but also for hydrogen processing plants or transportation.”

Led by Prof. Friedhelm Schlösser, the Schwank R&D team were able to equip the Schwank hydrogen operated tube heater with a completely new burner technology.

Beforehand, the ignition and combustion behaviour of hydrogen in a closed, small-volume systems was simulated on the computer using complex calculation models.

As Prof. Schlösser explains: “As soon as the theoretical approaches were transferred to the practical environment of the laboratory, it quickly became clear what makes the use of 100 per cent hydrogen so difficult. It is the nearly unpredictable behaviour of the fuel itself. What was deemed functional on the computer was no good in practice. So, with a lot of intensive work and countless live test series, we have developed the first functioning tube heater virtually from scratch.”

Throughout the HVAC sector the quest for energy efficiency and emissions reduction has been progressing for decades. Technology has advanced significantly in areas such as heat recovery and the use of energy sources such as biogas.

In order to meet the Net Zero targets for 2050, a range of strategies and technologies will be required.

These will be needed both to reduce carbon emissions from the production of energy and to meet demands for energy security in increasingly uncertain times.

The Hydrogen Council Report foresees uses for hydrogen in areas such as “long-range ground mobility (e.g. as fuel in heavy-duty trucks, coaches, long-range passenger vehicles, and trains), international travel (e.g. to produce synthetic fuels for maritime vessels and the aviation sector), heating applications (e.g. as high-grade industrial heat), and power generation (e.g. as dispatchable power generation as well as back-up power).” 

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Depak Lal is business development manager UK Geoenergy Observatories at British Geological Survey

Heating Technology

Photo courtesy BGS©UKRI

De-industrialisation and landscaping have hidden the abandoned mine workings below the Cuningar Loop in central Glasgow

A second life for coal mines

Abandoned mines could provide a rich source of energy for urban areas. Depak Lal looks at an experimental project under the streets of Glasgow

T

he sub-surface is a mysterious place to most people. Much of the activity in exploiting subsurface heat has been focussed on extracting heat using shallow ground source heat pump technologies which take advantage of the natural sub-surface environment. Flooded, abandoned coal mines are extensive man-made aquifers that are often co-located with urban population centres.

Utilisation of the warm water in flooded coal mines beneath many of the UK’s towns and cities could offer a substantial opportunity for the decarbonisation of heating. It is a technological solution that is proven, but not widely realised in commercial environments.

In the UK the British Geological Survey (BGS) helps us understand what lies beneath our feet. The BGS has developed a range of investigation facilities to support the exploration of the sub-surface and a topic of particular investigative interest at this time is the subsurface as a source of renewable energy for heating, cooling and thermal storage.

The opportunities arising from these renewable resources are site specific because the transfer of heat over distance is economically prohibitive.

The economics drive project developers towards making use of the

local resource available.

The BGS operates the UK Geoenergy Observatory in Glasgow which has been built in two phases.

The first phase of the Observatory is an at-scale underground laboratory of 12 boreholes and surface monitoring equipment. The boreholes have a wide range of monitoring and sensing equipment installed, for example to measure the electrical resistance and temperature distributions in the subsurface. The data from the sensors is used to create datasets to allow a range of investigators to explore issues associated with shallow, lowtemperature mine water heat energy, heat storage resources, subsurface processes and environmental change.

Mine water temperature

Five of the boreholes enable the monitoring and pumping of water between mine workings. The Glasgow Upper mine working is circa 45m deep and the Glasgow Main mine working is circa 80m below the surface. The mine water temperature is around 12oC in the Glasgow Main workings. The water temperature is specific to this mine and other mine workings may have higher water temperatures.

The second phase of construction at the Observatory is the installation of the geothermal infrastructure that

comprises downhole pumps, pipes that connect the boreholes together and feed the energy centre. The energy centre comprises three heat exchangers and a heat pump/chiller unit that simulates customer heating and cooling loads. Investigators can connect their own equipment to the pipework in the energy centre to test their equipment. The flow of water in the pipes and in the boreholes is reversible and the borehole pairs are configurable to allow flexibility to support a range of investigations into subsurface heat extraction and heat storage. The geothermal infrastructure provides the capability for investigative work at the scale of a small mine water energy scheme. The second phase will be available for use in April 2022.

At the Glasgow Observatory, the customer heating and cooling loads are simulated in the energy centre which means that the site is a safe environment to carry out investigation work without endangering energy supplies to customers. At a live commercial geothermal scheme with customers, the paramount consideration of the site operator will always be the uninterrupted supply of energy to customers in a safe and reliable system.

There is far more freedom to carry

out novel research at the Glasgow Observatory in comparison to commercial sites. Some experiments would either not be permissible or would be difficult to do on a commercial scheme. For example, introducing tracers or dosing the system, or the stopping and starting of pumping to explore transient effects in the system can be carried out. There is also an opportunity to explore variable flow rates and a range of heat exchange options that may not be possible on commercial schemes.

The Glasgow Observatory is a real-world setting at the scale of a small mine water energy scheme. It forms a meaningful stepping stone for investigations between laboratory development and commercialisation.

The commercialisation of mine water heating schemes will be helped by the development of digital twins that improve commercial certainty for developers.

The Glasgow Observatory is extensively instrumented with subsurface and surface monitoring and sensing equipment for water, gas, chemical, heat, physical property measurements. The underlying objective of the Observatory is knowledge and data acquisition towards cost and risk reduction.

Consequently, the installed sensor equipment is far more extensive than that required at a commercial site.

The extensive sensor equipment installed at the Glasgow Observatory means that there is a large and growing body of supporting data. Such data can be used to compare, validate and integrate the results generated by site users to enhance models and to derisk the future developments of mine water schemes. The future commercialisation of this renewable energy resource depends on derisking the development of schemes and enhancing the economics so that the future developers can secure investment capital.

A publicly funded NERC/UKRI facility, the Glasgow Observatory is open for a wide range of investigative work by academics and also by commercial organisations exploring heat solutions, developing new sensors or refining their energy models to de-risk future commercial schemes. 

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Heating Technology

Dave Palmer is director & general manager UK & Ireland at ICS Cool Energy

There are opportunities to successfully integrate heating and cooling

It’s time to go electric

With advances in heat pump technology electrification of heating in process and critical applications is now a realistic proposition, believes Dave Palmer

W

hile feasibility of a heat pump in industrial applications depends on the temperature levels required by the manufacturing process, there are applications, which need low to medium temperatures – an area where heat pumps can step in to replace the fossil-fuel based solutions.

While heat pumps were traditionally known for their residential applications, with rising energy costs and increasingly ambitious environmental goals they have become more and more recognised for their commercial and industrial applications.

Thanks to the technology innovation, many industrial processes like food and beverage, plastics and rubber, chemical and pharmaceutical – just to name a few – have started looking at heat pumps as an efficient heating solution for a wide range of their processes. As they were getting familiarised with the new products and technologies, they started recognising the economic benefits from a most efficient use of energy while also providing a significant benefit towards emission reduction.

Heat pumps rely on one of the most energy-efficient methods of heating: the transfer of free thermal energy from outside to inside based on the difference in temperature between

the two. What not everybody in the industry does though is look at cooling and heating at once. There are new opportunities ahead if we stop treating cooling and heating separately - we need to change the paradigm and start looking at heating from the cooling perspective and the opposite.

Heating demand profiles

Heating, cooling, heating while cooling, heating or cooling choices can be made when it comes to satisfying heating and cooling demands in practically any application. Across the plants and buildings in UK and Europe, we see different heating demand profiles that come with specific efficiency opportunities. All of them allow for significant efficiency improvements by choosing the right heat pump solution – and sometimes even combine it with other technologies.

While pure heating heat pump solutions require external (sustainable) heat sources such as air or (ground) water, simultaneous heating and cooling applications provide the unique opportunity to reclaim or harvest energy which is available within the same plant or building.

Chillers and cooling plant are used to cool manufacturing processes and facilities, and just by doing so

generate waste heat that typically gets lost to atmosphere, this heat does not just have to be wasted and can be harnessed effectively by Industrial Free Heating (i-FH) units.

Repurposing energy by integrating cooling and heating systems is an opportunity often overlooked. An obvious example is a hospital. Hospitals require all-year round cooling in

Repurposing energy by integrating cooling and heating is an opportunity often overlooked surgery rooms or to keep vital IT equipment such as MRI scanners running. Heating is required to keep patients comfortable and there is always demand for domestic hot water.

If we equip the building with a heat recovery chiller, it will generate hot water as a by-product of the chilled water system. The system can provide heating when there is a demand, whilst using, or when not simultaneously required, storing the cooling energy through use of ice banks. This helps

connect the heating and cooling demands within a 24-hour span.

Heat pumps offer significant energy savings because of their inherently efficient heating technology. Still, not every heat pump offers the same results.

Water-to-water heat pump can reach Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP) of 5 or more, which means the heating capacity is at least five times the electrical power consumption. Since this kind of system provides cooling too, the avoided power consumption of a traditional chiller adds to the overall saving. Considering that cooling and heating is provided by the same power source, a new efficiency metric called Total Energy Efficiency Ratio (TER) has been introduced. A SCOP of 5 leads to a TER of 9, which means 1 unit of power input delivers 4 units of cooling and 5 units of heating.

Heat recovery solution can further increase energy efficiency of heat pumps. Recovering the heat rejected through a condenser we can use it for another purpose. Partial heat recovery, for example, allows the recovery of energy from the compressor’s discharge.

With new generation, low global warming potential HFO refrigerants, it’s possible to achieve temperatures up to 120oC with water-sourced heat pump systems. Having said that, the stretch of these temperatures reduces the thermal capacity of these heat pumps, which affects the level of investment.

To optimise first costs and annual energy efficiency, for applications that require low or medium temperature heat, it is possible to go hybrid and partially electrify the heat demand, which allows for flexible switching between consumption of electricity and fossil fuels.

Traditionally, the total cost of ownership (TCO) comprises all costs associated with the cooling and heating system. This includes the purchase cost of the system (design, development and installation), running costs (maintenance and repair costs and time) plus recycling costs or resale value at the end of its lifecycle.

Even though the initial purchase price of one system may be higher than another, the better system leads to a lower TCO over the course of its lifecycle because it is more reliable or easier to maintain. For this reason, it is important to look beyond the initial cost to see the bigger picture. 

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Heating Technology Switch to liquid gas cuts whisky maker’s costs and emissions

In a bid to run more efficiently and to avoid the imminent withdrawal of tax relief on red diesel, family-run whisky producer J&A Mitchell & Co, is switching its energy supply at its Springbank and Glengyle distilleries from gas oil to liquid gas with Flogas.

As a result, it is set to cut energy costs by up to 18 per cent even before the subsidy changes, while also reducing carbon emissions by more than 20 per cent. It will also minimise other pollutant emissions, making it compliant with the government’s Medium Combustion Plant Directive (MCPD), which regulates against air pollution.

The two distilleries are based in Campbeltown, Scotland, a region renowned for its whisky making. The larger distillery, Springbank, has been in operation since 1828 and is famous for its Springbank single malt whisky.

Range of heat pumps extended as demand in UK continues to surge Best know as a boiler manufacturer, Strebel Ltd is now increasing its range of heat pumps.

The new S-ASX-21 air to water heat pump is available with heating capacities ranging from 60kW to 100kW. The units are suitable for multiple installations of up to 16 units operating in cascade.

Seasonal coefficiency of performance (SCoP) is a key performance measure for all heat pumps and the S-ASX-21 offers a favourable SCOP up to 4.41 at 35⁰C and 3.52 at 55⁰C. This range benefits from an enhanced vapour injection (EVI) design that, along with a well-matched compressor and refrigerant combination, helps to achieve flow temperatures of up to 65⁰C. EVI also ensures that heat output degradation is minimised when ambient temperatures drop to lower than 0⁰C. The S-ASX.21 unit can deliver 65⁰C even when ambient falls to minus 22⁰C, says Strebel.

however, we’re always looking to improve our energy efficiency where possible.”

J&A Mitchell & Co approached liquid gas specialist Flogas and, working in partnership with energy solutions firm Protech and burner manufacturer Weishaupt UK, Protech specified & designed a tailored solution to meet the requirements for both sites. At Springbank, the team is upgrading its existing burner to a dual fuel model, making liquid gas the primary fuel source, whilst at Glengyle, it is installing a brand new digital Weishaupt dual fuel burner. Fuelling both systems with underground pipework are liquid gas tanks, which sit between the two sites.

“The old boiler at Springbank originally ran on coal, then heavy oil and most recently gas oil. We replaced this in 2017 with a much more efficient boiler, but we knew we had to move away from oil and find a more futureproof energy solution at some point. It was the best way to make huge cost and emissions reductions in one go, without affecting our production process. 

Glengyle distillery, just two hundred metres away, was refurbished and re-opened in 2004, and is home to popular Kilkerran single malt whisky.

Using traditional distillation methods, they produce ‘Scotland’s most handmade whiskies,’ and at the heart of this are two steam boilers, which until now, have used gas oil as their primary fuel source.

“Springbank is an old distillery that was never designed with efficiency or sustainability in mind, so we’ve had to make improvements whilst making sure we don’t affect our original distillation process or popular final product,” said Findlay Ross, director of production at J&A Mitchell & Co. “Glengyle reopened more recently and has more modern design features,

Other standard features include compressor soft start, ModBus connectivity and an integrated fully modulating pump allowing close matching of heat demand to delivery.

S-ASX-21 units are of monobloc design, suitable for outdoor installation and integral dampers provide low acoustic performance.

“We saw growth in demand for our heat pumps in 2021 and the early signs are that this will increase

Heat interface unit designed for use with heat pumps or boilers

further in 2022 and beyond,” said Strebel UK national sales manager, Adrian Walker. “The recent performance upgrades we have made provide design engineers, contractors and end users with a high-performing heat pump solution,” 

Modutherm has launched the MTA PLUS heat interface unit (HIU) which has been specifically designed for use in 4th generation low temperature heat networks that utilise heat pumps or boilers. The launch comes hot on the heels of the company announcing a partnership agreement with leading heat pump manufacturer alpha innotec.

The MTA PLUS is an indirect HIU featuring two high performance SWEP LAS heat exchangers. These allow the unit to deliver impressive outputs from a low temperature energy source, offering DHW up to 75kW and heating up to 10kW. The use of LAS heat exchangers also ensures return temperatures from the MTA PLUS remain low and do not exceed 25ºC. This helps to deliver high network efficiencies, while also conforming to the CIBSE CP1 2020 Heat Networks Code of Practice.

All internal components are easily accessed with minimal tools from the front of the unit. They are also mounted on a unique HydraBlok composite backplate, which reduces mechanical water connections and the potential for internal leaks. In addition, the MTA PLUS is supplied with bottom connections to keep water away from

electrics and internal components. An optional top entry pipework kit is also available.

A user-friendly touch screen interface provides simple access to the MTA PLUS’ key settings and parameters. The unit can also be fitted with hard wired or wireless heat meters. 

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New Products

Guide to aid energy reduction in new build ventilation design With new Building Regulations on ventilation and energy efficiency coming into force later this year, ventilation components manufacturer GILBERTS BLACKPOOL has published Sustainable Building Design & the Zero Carbon Evolution.

The guide aims to help architects and consultants deliver significant energy consumption reduction in new build ventilation designs, through selection of natural ventilation.

The guide gives an overview of the diverse ventilation options available. The guide clarifies how the systems differ. It covers how each can be digitally engineering at the design stage to validate the design and performance criteria and ensure reduction in the building’s carbon emissions.

“Building services - heating, cooling, lighting - account for 28 per cent of carbon emissions in building and construction,” states Ian Rogers, Gilberts’ sales director. “Our British temperate climate actually works to the advantage of building services designers and specifiers in the drive towards sustainable building design. The key going forward will be how that is optimised.

Pumps for light-duty applications offer up to 30 per cent energy savings

“We believe, as an expert in the sector, in taking a supportive and pro-active approach, offering as much help as possible to enable informed decisions to be made, in a way that yields environmental and fiscally-sound benefits to all involved in delivering the nondomestic built environment.”

• The guide can be downloaded free of charge at www.gilbertsblackpool.com

ARMSTRONG has launched a range of Design Envelope Permanent Magnet (DEPM) pumps for light-duty applications using single-phase power (200230V). The new pump models are available in sizes from 0.25 to 1.5kW and can be installed in either horizontal or vertical piping. Compared to conventional ECM circulators or pumps with loose drives and standard induction motors, Armstrong’s new DEPM pumps provide up to 30 per cent operating cost savings, with increased variable speed efficiency, and the option of real-time performance monitoring and parallel pumping.

The pumps incorporate a constant flow function, for maintaining a precise flow rate in recirculation applications.

There is the added option for a 50:50 split of design flow, for redundancy and additional energy savings using embedded Parallel Sensorless Pump Control.

The range incorporates intelligence and connectivity, for access to the subscription-based Pump Manager service. This service provides cloud-based analytics that support performance optimisation. Users can track pump status and performance from a desktop or mobile device with automatic alert notifications if key parameters are exceeded.

Data Centre Efficiency

Maria Fedorovicheva is global product marketing manager for ABB Drives

As well as cutting costs around cooling, variable speed drives can cut the damaging impact of harmonics in data centres

Boosting data centre sustainability

Maria Fedorovicheva explains how ultra-low variable speed drives can help data centre operators limit energy consumption and reduce data centre carbon footprint

A

ccording to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global internet traffic grew by more than 40 per cent in 2020, driven by video streaming, video conferencing, online gaming and social networking during the pandemic.

The sector consumes more than 1 per cent of global electricity. And even though social restrictions are lifting, demand for data is continuing to grow at a tremendous rate. It is essential for data centre operators to improve their energy efficiency – meeting demand while curbing energy use and carbon emissions.

Variable speed drives (VSDs) are essential to supporting this. Their use is already well-established practice in data centre cooling to save energy.

The relationships between pump or fan shaft speed, flow rate, pressure and power are governed by the affinity laws, which show that reducing the speed of a fan or pump for example by 20 per cent can save as much as 50 per cent of energy. Data centres operate most of the time at partial loads, typically reaching peak demand in the afternoon and evening, when most people draw on services such as web conferencing and streaming. As a result, operators can easily achieve energy savings of 25 per cent and more by reducing cooling application speeds at non-peak hours.

Another important consideration is that drives don’t just affect cooling

system efficiency. They can also impact the overall efficiency of the electrical distribution network of a data centre. This is because, depending on the drive design, they can generate electromagnetic noise in the network called harmonics.

Harmonics result in increased line currents, and this may lead to noticeable electrical losses in cables and other power network equipment as power is lost to heat. These can be significant. For example, a standard drive might lead to about 40 per cent total harmonic distortion (THDi), making currents appear higher and resulting in about 20 per cent higher energy losses in cables.

However, it’s possible to avoid this – either by adding a harmonic filter or

by specifying ultra-low harmonic (ULH) drives. The ULH drives generate almost no harmonics in the first place and therefore noticeably limit losses in the network.

Less material usage

ULH drives have an important additional benefit as sustainability extends beyond efficient use of energy. Less material usage over a data centre’s lifetime can also make it more sustainable and reduce its carbon footprint.

As mentioned, a typical drive may result in higher line current due to the 40 per cent harmonic distortion.

It is standard practice to oversize power network equipment such as transformers, generators, switchgear

and cabling to handle this current.

For example, transformers might need to be oversized by about 35 per cent when using standard drives but with ULH drives, this margin can be reduced to 10 per cent. Similar principles apply to generators, cables and other power network equipment, with the ULH drive reducing the need to significantly oversize the system.

Smaller equipment means less use and processing of raw materials and lower energy consumption during manufacture of equipment. These lead to a smaller carbon footprint for the data centre. And the business owners have a lower project cost.

Sustainability can also relate to longer equipment lifetime. Drives help with this as they eliminate mechanical and electrical stresses on systems, for example by starting and stopping cooling applications in a smooth way which eliminates high inrush currents and water hammer.

Drives also help operators to avoid resonant frequencies and devastating vibrations, which can damage cooling system equipment.

In addition, they can provide data that informs operators about upcoming issues, such as a bearing failure by identifying when a drive is drawing a higher current than usual for the same load. All this leads to a longer lifetime for system equipment, eliminates unplanned outages and contributes to sustainability by using materials more wisely and repairing rather than replacing. This also contributes to reduced data centre carbon footprint.

A data centre operator in Asia is a particularly good example. When planning a new facility, it recognised the potential impact of harmonics on its energy consumption, as well as the sizing of its electrical systems.

Therefore, it is avoiding any issues arising from harmonics, having specified ULH drives for data centre cooling from the outset. The operator set the requirement to limit total harmonic distortion below 5 per cent.

Further requirements included the availability of a local service centre for technical support 24/7, and ability to deliver the drives to meet the project timeline.

The operator has installed almost 100 of ABB’s ACH580 ULH drives for the facility. This is a type of drive that is designed specifically for the pumps, fans and compressors as part of air-handling units, chillers, cooling towers, etc. in HVAC systems. Its builtin software includes features that are dedicated to HVAC operators for more efficient processes control. 

30 | ENERGY IN BUILDINGS & INDUSTRY | MARCH 2022

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Water Management

Paul Winnett is Xylem Water Solutions sales director, building services & OEM

Cope with fluctuating water needs

Paul Winnett explains how harnessing the power of intelligent technology offers the opportunity to improve water efficiency and minimise consumption in buildings

R

esearch from 2020¹ showed the first coronavirus lockdown led to dramatic changes in water consumption in England and Wales, with many new habits here to stay. The workingfrom-home trend has relocated water consumption from public spaces, such as offices and gyms, to the home while peak times of water use have changed and become less predictable.

This shift poses a significant challenge for building systems which must prove capable of adapting to meet the unprecedented demands placed upon them while maintaining high standards for users.

From the design stage onwards, a range of solutions offer ways to improve water pressure without increasing energy usage, to more accurately monitor how clean water is used and to find alternative sources to meet that challenge without compromising on performance or comfort, and bringing cost and energy savings at the same time.

New buildings and renovations alike now have the opportunity to build in resilience from the ground up to allow them to flex to meet future requirements.

Planners, specifiers and consultants can gain valuable insights at the design stage from Building Information Modelling (BIM). It creates a digital twin of any physical asset to evaluate everything from energy consumption to life cycle costs and forecast how any building system will perform to allow for continuous system optimisation.

By providing a common digital data environment for all parties from investors to contractors, BIM is changing the landscape of the global construction business. BIM can predict performance and identify potential energy and water savings to future-proof new developments as well as retrofits, meaning there aren’t any unpleasant surprises during construction and commissioning.

Fluctuations in demand have been pronounced for both commercial and residential buildings as our living and working habits have changed.

Adapting buildings to meet this task calls for smart solutions which not only automatically supply water according to users’ needs in real time but offer further control options, including

An intelligent control system can ensure variable speed pumping to boost efficiency

the ability to interact with building management systems.

Intelligent technology

Harnessing the power of intelligent technology offers more agility for systems to cope and respond rapidly: fully automatic booster sets coupled with variable speed pump controllers can guarantee stable water pressure to every corner of a building, increasing reliability while reducing energy consumption.

A shift in use for a Venetian hotel, from one-time home to a bustling five-star destination with 143 guest bedrooms over five storeys, as well as two restaurants, posed a significant challenge for its pumping system to reliably supply hot and cold water to every room in the building both day and night.

The installation of a Lowara GHV booster set alongside a Lowara

Hydrovar variable speed pump controller allowed the hotel’s maintenance team to increase the pressure from 3.50 bar, the rate at which water is supplied from the municipal water company, to 3.92, the rate required to reach the hotel’s highest rooms.

The Hydrovar intelligent control system is capable of varying speed to match requirement so that it only pumps at higher pressures when needed; as a result, the hotel’s energy consumption decreased while the overall efficiency of its pumping system was vastly improved².

Changing usage in our buildings make it imperative that clean water use is distributed and recorded correctly – a particular challenge for commercial and industrial sites.

The demands placed on future-fit meters include greater connectivity, both to building management systems

or to utilities seeking multiple communication options for automatic meter reading; ensuring meters remain accurate over a lengthy life cycle is also vital for optimal performance.

The latest high-performance meters use advanced ultrasonic technology as part of a wider communication network to gather precise low and high-flow data in real time and offer accurate, reliable readings over a 20-year battery life. The addition of pressure monitoring can even proactively identify leaks, improve efficiency and examine the overall health of the water network.

Reconsidering how we use water within our buildings offers the opportunity to take a fresh look at water efficiency too, with the potential to harvest new sources to supply different requirements.

Globally, buildings are recognised as one of the highest users of freshwater resources both in the construction phase and throughout their use.

Residential water use represents 72 per cent of the total water use in buildings³.

Faced with increasing water scarcity in many parts of the UK and globally, there are many measures available within our buildings to minimise use. Supplementing water supply by harvesting rainwater or ground water can provide a useful future source for flushing toilets, irrigation or fountains, for example, to reduce consumption and boost efficiency.

Optimising performance with the help of the latest digital solutions can minimise energy consumption and increase water efficiency to help buildings adapt. Intelligent technology can help pumping systems to alter performance in real time when demand is reduced, for example, or the latest meters can even improve the efficiency of our clean water systems.

This future-proofed approach can build more sustainable and agile buildings from the ground up, consuming fewer resources without compromising on performance. 

References

1 https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/ coronavirus-lockdown-caused-dramaticchanges-in-water-consumption/ 2 https://www.xylem.com/en-uk/support/casestudies-and-white-papers/italy-venice-lowaraxylem-historic-venetian-hotel/ 3 https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/quantity/ pdf/BIO_WaterPerformanceBuildings.pdf

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Water Management

Barry McGovaney is sustainability lead at Water Plus Ltd

Using less water overall means lower Scope 3 emissions

Save water, save energy

With the spotlight on energy costs Barry McGovaney looks at how cutting water consumption can have a big knock on effect for energy use and emissions reductions

S

aving water at your organisation can save energy – helping lower Scope 1 and 2 emissions and cut future running costs too.

Using less hot water through small steps like tap aerators in kitchens and facilities and cutting any areas of water waste also help. And using less water overall means lower Scope 3 emissions.

There’s a big 130 per cent tax deduction currently available for organisations that invest in equipment including fittings in their buildings - so it’s a great time to look at water saving and it all helps with Net Zero too. This year, requirements for more organisations to publish further climate-related detail in their financial reporting starts from April 2022 – with more expected to increase reporting on this area and the steps they’re taking between 2023 and into 2025.

As there’s carbon linked to the water you get through your site pipes and the wastewater that’s taken away and treated – it’s worth looking closer at the water your organisation uses.

Water is crucial at helping lower Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. If water is heated with gas at your site, then Scope 1 emissions can be reduced by saving on the amount of water being heated. Hot water heated by electric heaters, would be under Scope 2

emissions, along with the amount of energy purchased overall. Water pumped around by electric pumps is also under Scope 2 emissions.

Hot water can cost between two to four times more than cold water, once energy costs are considered, and water efficient taps, showerheads and other measures can all help there.

It’s important to know what water you’re using, where and when, along with checking site pipes, fittings and water meters, if they’re safe to access regularly, ideally once a month.”

In addition, it’s worth reviewing or introducing a water emergency plan for your site/s, so your employees know what to do if water was to stop suddenly at the workplace. Around

one in five businesses have had a water issue on-site, with almost one in ten having to shut their site for an hour or more. Also, 92 per cent of people from private sector and public sector organisations who completed a poll at the SUSTx Sustainability Summit earlier this year (2022), said they wouldn’t know if there was an underground leak at their organisation.

Regular water monitoring

Along with regular monitoring of water use at sites, knowing what to do and where you’d get water if you need it is essential.

Data loggers on water meters, that feed update into an online portal have

helped organisations with managing their water use.

In January 2022, a site had a 12m³ an hour water leak but was not sure where on their pipes. They contacted Water Plus Advanced Services, who located the source of the issue and carried out the repair work. The leak, which data loggers on the water meter and the online portal also tracked, would have cost £22,000 in a month.

Universities have a valuable opportunity to save on energy costs and their water bills at sites, where use has changed - through regular checks and monitoring how water is flowing.

A university was recently alerted to an issue with their water pipes at a student accommodation campus, which has a number of blocks with those studying at the institution using hot and cold water each day during term dates.

The site in England, which houses more than 2,000 students and is selfcatering, was seeing 3.7m³ of water an hour being lost in December 2021, tracked through a data logger on the main water meter. It means a cost of around £1,550 a week, showing how costs can soon add up for institutions.

Work is underway to pinpoint the source and cause and arrange a repair of the pipes affected.

Mark Taylor, Advanced Services Operations Manager in England for Water Plus, said: “With energy costs in the news, there are some areas where there are low-cost opportunities and options for universities, particularly if the number of people at sites is fluctuating through a year. Getting more data on where water is used is an important first step along with checks ahead of and during colder months in a year.

“One example is where, through tracking water more closely, a university site could see the effect of high water pressure, which is no longer needed, after the size of accommodation blocks decreased as the site use changed. The high pressure not only means higher costs from more water going through taps in the buildings that are in use, but also puts extra strain on pipework causing leaks, on top of the extra hot water and cold water use – again increasing energy spending and Scope 3 carbon emissions.”

An Acute Hospital in England that had data loggers installed on water meters in 2021, found the extra, daily information on water use through an online smart portal is also helping with their financial planning, including budgeting and forecasting, as well as identifying opportunities for water efficiency steps. 

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TALKING HEADS

Professor Nashwan Dawood is Professor of Digital Construction, Teesside University

Nashwan Dawood

T

he process of heating our buildings amounts to more than 40 per cent of energy consumption in the UK. Almost all of this generated heat uses fossil fuel energy which contributes enormously to the spiralling and damaging carbon emissions in the UK. To further compound the problem, energy costs are rising dramatically and could double in the very immediate future. These treats to the planet and to the pocket mean that there is, as never before, an urgent need to look at strategies for reducing energy consumption while keep buildings healthy, comfortable and warm.

We should be looking at addressing three sets of issues in how digital technologies can control energy waste and costs. These relate to: heat zoning; the use of intelligent technologies to better predict energy consumption; and the use of better installation materials and more sustainable energy systems such as heat pumps.

Machine learning (ML) and heat zoning can be used for potential energy reduction in buildings. ML is capable of predicting more precise energy consumption and ultimately allow us to have a baseline to monitor, compare and ultimately reduce energy consumptions.

To assist in the creation of optimised building and management plans for the reduction of building energy usage, development of energy predicting models can either be produced during a building’s design or during the occupancy period.

Whereas design stage models tend towards using either physics engines, statistical models or historical data from other sites, calibration and occupancy period models have the advantage of being able to use data from the actual building site to enhance energy use predictions.

A particular issue that can occur with energy use prediction models is that the level of accuracy can deteriorate over time due to changes in overall energy usage. As a building ages, its physical properties change, as does the usage of the building by the building’s occupants.

These changes may be beneficial, for example, in the cases of renovations to improve overall building energy

Prof. Dawood: 'machine learning and heat zoning can be used for potential energy reduction in buildings'

Prediction shouldn’t be guesswork

Professor Nashwan Dawood believes that machine learning can be used to take some of the inaccuracies out of predicting the actual use of buildings efficiency, or negative, for example, in the case of materials decaying over time. Whether the change is beneficial or negative, the result is that if a building’s prediction model is not retrained or remade with up-to-date data, the ability to accurately predict the energy use will decrease. This can lead to a much-reduced ability of building owners to effectively predict their building energy usage.

Accurate machine learning

Machine learning (ML) techniques that are currently been promoted by the research community to model energy using actual energy and occupancy data, tend towards being more accurate than physics models for predicting building energy use “when training data is abundant”. Machine learning techniques are, however, less generalist and predict less accurately when extrapolating outside of available training data.

The use of these models should give building owners and managers a better benchmark to assess future energy use and how this can be reduced through

experiments with ML models. These models can be mounted on automated control systems that can give warning to users if their energy use is out of control and potentially highlight how energy use can be reduced.

Such models cannot operate without smart management systems and, given the importance of smart techniques for energy management, conversion, and control in addressing the climate emergency and supporting energy reduction goals, a concerted effort over the last decade has been to focus research efforts within the research community - and in particular in our work at Teesside University - in this specific area and to innovate results into real-world impact.

Research at Teesside has resulted in the development of novel methods and ICT tools for energy supply/demand predictive analytics, energy asset datadriven modelling, and energy asset optimal control within a distributed IoTbased Energy Management System (EMS) framework.

Since 2012, collaborative funded projects have seen further applied

research and innovation with key industrial partners and application of the tools for smart energy management in numerous successful demonstrations in offices and university buildings.

The smart energy tools were adapted and integrated with Siemens UK commercial products to form an ICT solution for co-ordinated demand response for HVAC and heat pump systems in blocks of buildings within the €5.1M DR-BoB (Demand Response in Blocks of Buildings, Horizon 2020) project, also led by Teesside University.

The developed ICT solutions provide an innovative scalable cloud/ edge-based Industry 4.0 energy management system for demand assets across single and multiple blocks of buildings. When used in conjunction with supply-side management tools it provides a complete solution to renewables integration and energy market interaction.

The system is intelligent and can automatically adapt to fluctuations in energy demand or production, subject to dynamic price tariffs (where applicable) and changing weather conditions, and is supported by tools for building energy evaluation and socio-technical analysis and recommendations for effective deployment. The platform has been trialled in several pilot sites in the UK, Romania, Italy, and France.

To make the predictive and smart models work well and have the desired outcomes, a zoning strategy for heating buildings needs to be developed and monitored. Zoning is about having different spaces to be heated at different times and integrated with the use of the building and, in particular, in office buildings where variable spaces are occupied at different times of the day.

Most buildings do not have the facilities and tools to enable the zoning strategy. They need to be upgraded with different timers and sensors on radiators and also have upgrading of boilers in order to work at different capacities and so serve different demands for user needs. 

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DIRECTORY CONTACTS

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Air Conditioning

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TURNKEYaM&T Meter and monitoring any utility. In house designed hardware and software.

SME’s, City Wide Projects, Large Organisations. Pulse, Modbus, Mbus. www.energymeteringtechnology.com enquiries@energymeteringtechnology.com Tel: 01628 664056

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Controls & Inverters Heat Networks

METERING DOCTORS

Temperature Sensors

LET US SOLVE YOUR METERING PROBLEMS

EMT resolve issues with meters and aM&T systems that have been badly fitted and are inappropriate or wrongly installed, systems that have never functioned properly and unsuitable or wrongly configured software.

We have considerable knowledge and can help assess, recommission or replace any aM&T system to render them as useful tools for your utility management needs.

For more information on how we can help, Tel: 01628 664056 Email: enquiries@meteringtech.com www.energymeteringtechnology.com

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