• the Building Regulations for England and the Devolved Administrations
• HM Treasury’s Stamp Duty exemption for zero carbon homes
• benchmark ratings for Northern Ireland’s House Conditions Survey
• Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and Energy Performance Certificates
• the Code for Sustainable Homes
• Warm Front
• Local authority stock reporting; etc

We’ve just finished work on a £5 Million government project The Fold. In 2009, Lancashire Authority placed a successful bid for funding from the Cross-Government Co-Location Fund; they were to provide health and well-being services for children, youth and families in South West Burnley. Valued at £5million, this was the fifth highest allocation nationally. Our job was to provide the Heating calculations, Solar Gains reports, a Detailed Daylight Factor Report, a complete Dynamic Simulation, and finally to produce the Energy Performance Certificate.

The building’s occupancy encompasses on-site access from schools to a range of health, wellbeing and learning services, including:

• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
• Health Trainers
• School Nursing
• Sexual Health Services
• Smoking Cessation
• Exercise on Prescription (facilities available at the new schools)
• Drugs Treatment
• Alcohol Treatment and Brief Interventions
• CHD/CVD identification of risk factors
• Uptake of Screening – childhood and cancer
• Physical Activity Programmes including Healthy Eating
• Mental Health services
• Children’s Integrated Services
• Family Social Care
• Parenting Support
• School attendance advice and support
• Healthy Schools Programme
• Curriculum input including Diploma support

The chart to the left gives a visual comparison of the internal and ambient temperatures for the building.

The neat grouping of the Dry resultant temperature (grey line) shows the building to have adequate control over the internal heat levels.

For ease of reference the internal temperatures are expressed in terms of percentage of room-by-room occupied hours when each room climbs above 25˚C and above 28˚C. It should be noted that according to the relevant Building Regulations the building cannot exceed 25˚C for more than 5% of the occupied hours and the building cannot exceed 28˚C to more than 1% of the occupied hours.

Our services on this project included:

• Geometrical Construction of IES (VE) Model (Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment)
• SBEM Assessment and Provision of BRUKL Output report
• Energy Performance Certificate
• Room-by-Room Solar Gain Report
• Detailed Daylighting Report

Learn more about The Fold on the Lancashire Government website.

Naturally, their efforts do not stop there. The new retail unit proposed for Knaresborough will have much focus on the building’s energy efficiency and sustainability: its design, construction and use being developed under BREEAM Retail. BREEAM is the world’s foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings; setting the standard for best practice in sustainable building construction and operation. BREEAM aids the discovery of innovative solutions that minimise environmental impacts, reduces running costs, improves working environments and demonstrates progress towards environmental objectives. Complete Energy has undertaken the BREEAM 2011 retail project for this development, and it is anticipated that the store will receive a “Very Good” BREEAM rating focusing on aspects such as CO2 Emissions, Building Fabric, Heating and Ventilation.

- BREEAM

• Pre Assessment
• Design Stage
• Post Construction

- Design Stage SBEM Assessment
- Post Construction Sbem Assessment
- Surface Water Runoff Calculations
- Flood Risk Assessment
- Detailed Daylighting Calculations
- Building User Guide
- LZC (Low To Zero Carbon) Technology Study
- Specification of Natural Ventilation Louvers And Fresh Air Rates

A development built in 1900; The Victoria Quarter is a distinctly luxurious shopping area of Leeds featuring upmarket brands such as Hobbs, Louis Vuitton, Jack Wills, Vivienne Westwood and more. Complete Energy was tasked with undertaking the Energy Performance Certificates for all of its 60+ stores. Despite the age of the buildings, the majority of the assessments concluded with certificates indicating the energy efficiency, building fabric and heating, ventilation and cooling as good, with many achieving an impressive C rating.

At a conference in London, Ministers will meet potential investors in offshore wind projects to establish what can be done to increase investment in this area. The UK needs around £200bn of investment in new energy infrastructure to help reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and boost our energy security. Much of this will need to come from sources beyond the UK’s current major energy suppliers.

The Prime Minister David Cameron, said:

“I see offshore wind as a significant energy and industrial opportunity for the UK, and one that I am determined to seize.

“I believe the UK will remain the world’s most attractive offshore wind market for many years to come. We have abundant natural advantages and a world-leading marine engineering base.

“The Coalition Government strongly supports the growth of renewable energy in order to help diversify and decarbonise our long-term energy mix.”

Charles Hendry, Minister of State for Energy, said:

“Getting new capital into projects like offshore wind farms is the difference between getting them off the drawing board and into the water, creating jobs and stimulating growth.

“We have invited potential investors to London today to make the case for offshore wind as a stable, long-term and lucrative investment opportunity. The UK is a global leader in offshore wind and if people are not seriously considering investing here then I want to know why.”

too see full report click here.

The West Bromwich facility will treat disposable nappies and other absorbent hygiene products (AHPs) such as adult incontinence items and feminine hygiene items. Initially, this will all be sourced from commercial AHP waste operators, with services companies such as OCS/Cannon Hygiene, PHS All Clear and Initial Rentokill among those sending what Knowaste said were “long-term contracted tonnages” to the plant. The companies collect material from washrooms, hospitals, nursing facilities and child care nurseries.

These firms will pay a gate fee to use the facility, which a spokeswoman for Knowaste said was “competitive to current landfill costs including taxes”. She explained: “As landfill taxes continue to rise, Knowaste can help customers avoid these costs for this waste stream in the long term.”

The Knowaste process, which was pioneered in Canada, involves nappies and other AHPs being broken apart and sterilised in an autoclave, before being washed and then exposed to a chemical treatment which deactivates the absorbent polymers in the material.

Plastic materials are then removed and sent on for separate processing, where they are compressed into small pellets that can be sold on to reprocessors. The remaining parts of the AHP then enter a screening process that aims to capture any remaining traces of plastic and other organic material.

The remaining organic waste is then dried out and sent for energy generation. According to Knowaste, it treats 95% of all input material itself, with the remainder either being sent to landfill or sewer or, in the case of rejects from the process such as metals, recycled locally.

The Knowaste plant uses autoclave technology to sterilise and break apart nappies and other absorbent hygiene products.

While this West Bromwich plant is initially focused on commercial AHP, according to Knowaste the plant has the “flexibility” to take waste from the domestic stream and it has said it is already working on targeting this source of material.

The company’s chief executive, Roy Brown, said: “We are also developing partnerships with local authorities and their waste contractors to recycle domestic AHP waste in the future and our plant here in the Midlands and those intended for Scotland, the West and London will enable both commercial operators and local authorities to further cut carbon, increase recycling and divert waste from landfill.”

However, the spokeswoman added: “It takes time however to build domestic collections infrastructure and therefore local authorities looking at this waste stream will be an important part of our future development.”

Read the full article here: http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/plastics/uk2019s-first-nappy-recycling-plant-opens and find out more about Knowaste by going to www.knowaste.com

Housing is responsible for more than a quarter of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions. But from 2016, all new homes must be built to the equivalent of level 5 of the code for sustainable homes, a step down from the previous Government’s aspiration to make every home compliant with level 6 of the code by 2016.

This means all new homes must reduce their carbon emissions and use only on-site power for heating and lighting (excluding appliances). Effectively making new homes a carbon sink is likely to require microgeneration of electricity and heat from wind or solar technology.

However, significant carbon savings can also be made by using renewable materials in construction, which have far less embodied carbon (the carbon used to make any product, bring it to market and dispose of it) than their non-renewable alternatives.

Read the full article here: http://www.nnfcc.co.uk/news/fewer-than-forty-homes-reach-level-6-of-the-code-for-sustainable-homes

Small Brownfield (20 dwellings at 40dph)

City Infill (40 dwellings at 160 dph)

Edge of town (100 dwellings at 40 dph)

Urban Regeneration (1000 dwellings at 160 dph)

Strategic Greenfield (2000 dwellings at 40 dph)   

Large egde of town (3,300 dwellings at 40 dph)

The new research, based on interviews with developers and the latest information about environmental technologies, shows the overall extra costs of building new homes to standards set in the Code for Sustainable Homes is falling year on year.

For homes built to Code level 3 standards, average extra costs have fallen by almost three quarters in the last three years – falling from £4,458 in 2008 to £1,128 in 2010.

Communities Minister Andrew Stunell said:

“Building greener homes is vital if we are to meet our nation’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change – so today’s report is good news for the entire country. The progress that has been made does not only benefit developers building Code-standard homes, it also provides valuable lessons ahead of the transition to building new homes to zero carbon standards from 2016.

“As a country we still have lot of work to do to reduce carbon emissions from new development, but what these figures show us is that as the construction industry continues to build more sustainable homes, there is further potential for the costs associated building greener homes to continue falling”.