After too long a delay, here is the Informatics Energy Report on what I’ve discovered about energy use in the Forum and what other willing colleauges have been doing to help reduce it. The executive summary is that since April energy use has been is down by around 15% on the corresponding month in 2011. Some of this is due to improving the control of ventilation in the Forum and some is due to reductions in desktop computer and office appliance use.
I’m very aware that there is more to do – not least the lights permanently on in the kitchen areas. Hopefully there will be progress to report on this and other areas before too long.
It’s a bit scary how much of our engergy goes on keeping this “passive” building ventilated.
Yep, truly impressive given that our older, less technically efficient buildings use “free” off-CHP hot air for heating and (genuinely free) window-opening to cool; crucially, between them, these old-fashioned measures achieve a level of occupant control over the environment that the Forum cannot achieve. I have always wondered why this didn’t harm its BREEAM rating…
David, thanks very much for compiling this. It is great to see how things change over time. Is it right that the improved ventilation control is equates simply to having cut down the hours in which the ventilation is running, or has something more subtle been done?
Apologies for not replying sooner Graham – I’ll have to work out how to enable email notifications! I think the key change has been that the vents on the top of the Atrium can now be opened and closed remotely, rather than requiring someone to go up on the roof – which meant that the vents were only opened and closed once a year. Remote control of the vents allows the building to cool faster when required. I don’t know all the details, but I believe that it is this change that has allowed Dougie Williams to tweak the timings and settings of the ventillation system. I’m not sure exactly what it’s done, but it’s a complex business: there are dampers that control the airflow to various segments of the building. If just one segment is over the threshold temperature, air has to flow there, and the supply and extract fans have to run.
Quite! However, I am pretty sure that the percentage taken by ventialation would be considerably lower if Dougie Williams repeated his meter readings now (I’ve asked him, but he’s stowed out with other things). There have been a number of tweaks to the system.
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