Signify has been appointed by Frasers Group to design and supply the lighting for all 69 Everlast Gyms across the UK. The lighting upgrade is part of the Fraser Group’s ‘elevation strategy’ to develop a unique model within the UK fitness industry and offer an unparalleled class and gym experience for Everlast members and visitors which is both inclusive and immersive.
In addition, designing the gyms with LED lighting dramatically cuts the energy consumption by about 80 per cent, when compared to the traditional technologies that were deployed earlier. Added controls will help manage and reduce energy consumption by creating and managing uniform light schedules for all 69 gyms from a single dashboard,
13 Is your BEMS fit for this winter?
Graeme Rees discusses some useful steps to ensure your BEMS is ready for winter
14 Stay smart and secure
Smart sensors help make a building more efficient but they do pose a cybersecurity problem
16 Plan ahead for net zero
Kas Mohammed examines the strategies needed for creating a net-zero building ecosystem
17 A fabric-first solution for student rooms
All-electric heating is being controlled by a sophisticated control system at Durham University
18 Cost-effective microgrid control
Nigel Thomas explains how smart circuit breakers can provide a control solution in microgrids
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
34 Hybrid working means smart lighting
How smart lighting can help companies optimise energy use as the work landscape changes
36 The future is connected
Control of street lighting can lead to dramatically lower costs and reduced carbon emissions
37 Lighting technology in action
New warehouse lighting adds to supply chain company’s green credentials while gym chain chooses LED lighting
38 How sustainable is your battery?
The sustainability considerations for battery option selection in data centre energy storage systems
40 Batteries bring new life to site
Centrica is to convert a decommissioned gasfired power station into a battery storage facility
Update
It’s time for Kwasi Kwarteng to deploy the £3bn allocated to energy efficiency in the Tory manifesto
Fundamentals CPD Series
can the Internet of Things influence your decision making when it comes to energy management?
Mervyn Pilley explains how ESTA is preparing to adapt to a fast-changing energy market
29 Facing up to a water-scarce future
Karma Loveday looks at how water retailers are finally waking up to the need to innovate
30 Keep the parts clean
Management of components can help maintain the safety and hygiene of a water system
32 Unlock the dirty secrets
Keep water in prime condition and a heating system could run smoothly for years
is the time to ‘invest smart’
decarbonisation to ensure energy resilience,
Darren Riva
Managing
In the time since I wrote the last column we have a new monarch and a new government. Just a quiet month, then.
King Charles III has been such a strong advocate and force for good for environmental issues that I had high hopes that he would be able to continue this good work without rustling too many feathers or drifting into politics. However, it seems that is not to be. He was all lined up to address the COP27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, next month. It would have been his first overseas trip as sovereign. The eyes and ears of the world would have been on Charles and this speech. However, it seems that the new Government didn’t think it would be a good idea. The Queen gave a non-political speech at COP26 last year so there is a precedent for
it. The 73-year-old has played an active role in previous environmental summits. The King delivered the opening speech at COP21 in Paris in 2015, calling for a “vast military-style campaign” to fight climate change and urging world leaders to commit “trillions, not billions, of dollars”. It is hugely disappointing that the Government has advised against it and a huge error of judgement.
It’s not the only error of judgement the Government has made in its short life. As I write The Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng is preparing to justify his climb down on abolishing the top rate of income tax.
We can only hope that there will be a similar U-turn on his record on energy
efficiency. September’s “mini-budget” splurge by the new Government did include just one token nod towards helping energy efficiency. Tucked away unpublicised in the Treasury statement was a solitary gesture, the only initiative intended to “improving energy efficiency in the UK.”
The penultimate paragraph of the document, 4.36, includes a commitment that “to make homes cheaper to heat, the government will bring forward legislation to implement new obligations on energy suppliers to help hundreds of thousands of their customers take action to reduce their energy bills.”
Andrew Warren
Throughout his 20 months of tenure as Business Secretary, there was an almost complete official silence from Kwarteng about the potential role that reducing demand in a purposeful fashion can achieve regarding lessening both import and pricing pressures.
It is concerning that energy saving and environmental issues seem to have disappeared off the agenda so soon in the life of a Government. Perhaps public pressure can force more U turns.
PROMOTING
Published
MARK THROWER
Tel:
CHRIS EVANS
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NATHAN WOOD
SHARON NUTTER
FRAN
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As the new Truss government turns to prioritise fracking and North Sea gas, a new poll has shown that a majority of UK investors are looking to invest more in renewable energy. They said they were ‘deeply concerned’ about the climate and energy crises and want to ‘take matters into their own hands’.
The poll from Thrive Renewables, undertaken by Opinium Research, surveyed 1000 UK retail investors alongside 2000 people from the general public. It found that nearly seven in 10 investors (69 per cent) believe the UK should increase the amount it invests in renewable energy.
Among the wider UK public, twothirds of non-investor respondents said they want investment in renewables to increase.
As for the retail investors, 65 per cent said they support more solar energy projects in the UK, which rises to 78 per cent of ‘seasoned investors’ (who have been investing for 10 years or more).
September’s infamous “mini-budget” splurge by the new Truss Government did include just one token nod towards helping energy efficiency. Tucked away unpublicised in the Treasury statement was a solitary gesture, the only initiative intended to “improving energy efficiency in the UK.”
The penultimate paragraph of the document, 4.36, includes a commitment that “to make homes cheaper to heat, the government will bring forward legislation to implement new obligations on energy suppliers to help hundreds of thousands of their customers take action to reduce their energy bills.”
At the same time, the Government has undertaken to refund all expenditure incurred by those energy companies undertaking improvement works under the fourth round of the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) scheme, which officially started this past April. The Obligation anticipates combined expenditure by the energy companies of £1bn each year for the next three years. The energy
companies will simply pass on all invoices they have incurred to the Treasury, thus potentially reducing their incentive to operate as efficiently as possible.
The “mini-budget” announcement of “new obligations” does not specifically link this additional scheme to the revised ECO4 arrangements. Instead, it commits to spending just an additional £333m extra per year for the next three years, beginning in April 2023, and
concluding in March 2026 well after the next General Election is due.
Over the past ten years, the ECO scheme has installed more than 3.5m improvements in 2.4m properties. It is now saving beneficiaries approaching £1,000 p.a., and has helped reduce overall gas consumption by over 20 per cent.
Surprisingly, the Treasury has reduced considerably the savings anticipated from this new initiative. Instead, all this “help”- as the Government modestly describes itwill be “delivering an average saving of around £200 a year.”
Or in other words, these improvements will only cut the average residential fuel bill, now set at £2.500 p.a., by as little 8 per cent. It is difficult to see precisely which energy saving measures will be installed which could make so marginal a difference.
The government will also imminently open applications for up to £2.1bn over the next two years to support local authorities, housing associations, schools as well as hospitals invest in energy efficiency and renewable heating.
It is not yet fully clear how this will relate to the remaining £1.4bn under phases 3a and 3b of the established Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme
With the government having announced a freeze on the energy price cap, new analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) suggests that investment in home insulation could be costneutral on Treasury before the next election with reduced bills cutting the overall cost of the price freeze.
In essence, Treasury wouldn’t have to pay for the price cap freeze on energy that is saved by reducing the heat being lost through uninsulated roofs and walls.
If bills are frozen at £1,971, every pound invested in insulation will effectively be paid back by the end of Q4 2024, based on industry price predictions, a steady gas price in 2024 and government price freeze support extending beyond the expected 18-month scheme, given gas prices are predicted to stay high. In addition to the saving to Treasury, the homes themselves will save £450 from their bills.
Investment as little as £1,000 per home could cover basic measures that would move an Energy Performance Certificate band D home to band C, the government’s target for 2035. About 10m properties lack one or both of loft and cavity wall insulation.
More than 1m households occupying new properties are now paying up to £470 a year more in energy bills. This is due to a 2015 Conservative decision to scrap green home rules, research suggests. The “short-sighted” decision seven years ago to build new homes to a lower standard of energy efficiency (see EiBI Jan 2015) means millions of people are facing higher bills amid the energy crisis, according to the Liberal Democrats.
The Zero Carbon Homes Standard had long been agreed to come into force in 2016. It would have made all new UK homes carbon neutral by requiring developers to build highly efficient structures, while properties would also have to generate clean energy. But six months before they were set to enter force, the former Conservative Chancellor
George Osborne overnight axed the standards, in a drive to cut costs for housebuilders.
As a result, since 2016 just over 1m new homes have been built in the UK with a lower standard of energy efficiency.
The Liberal Democrats’ analysis suggests those living in new-build flats built from 2016 could have saved up to £178 a year under this month’s new price cap. Those in terraced homes could have saved up to £279 a year, and those in large family homes are paying up to an extra £470 a year.
Liberal Democrat Climate and Energy Spokesperson, Wera Hobhouse, (above) said the “short-
sighted” decision to scrap the zero carbon homes policy was “shameful. Hundreds of pounds have been slapped onto people’s bills by the Conservatives because of their short-sighted decision to scrap energy efficiency standards.”
Although new homes are generally much more energy efficient than older properties, particularly period houses, few are being built to top-range standards. Currently, just 1 per cent of new homes achieve an energy performance certificate rating of “A”.
This leads directly to higher heating bills A 2019 Report issued by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit found that new homes being built under the 2015 standards can require 60 per cent more energy to heat than an average Zero Carbon Home would have done. However, new building regulations known as the Future Homes Standard, which came into effect in June, do mean all new homes today should be being built to higher efficiency standards and lower carbon heating technologies- six years later than originally planned.
Home insulation could be ‘cost neutral’ENERGY BILL RELIEF SCHEME
A temporary six-month scheme in Great Britain, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme is partially protecting businesses and other non-domestic energy users, including charities and public sector organisations, from rising energy bills this winter by providing a discount on wholesale gas and electricity prices. A parallel scheme, based on the same criteria and offering comparable support, will be established in Northern Ireland.
Initial calculations suggest that anticipated fuel bills will be reduced in size by around one-third in consequence- but will still be more than triple most earlier costs per kilowatt hour. The initial cost to the Treasury for the temporary scheme is
estimated to be around £60bn.
The announcement was met with scorn by the union Unite. Its boss, Sharon Graham, described the Government’s plans as “a short-term taxpayer funded panic measure.
Although they will give business some respite on soaring energy bills in the short term, employers are crying out for long-term solutions in order to be able to plan with confidence for the future.
“Yet again the taxpayer is being required to pick up the tab, with no check or penalty being placed on the excessive profits being generated by the energy companies who will be laughing all the way to the bank.”
The UK Green Building Council’s head of policy and public affairs, Louise Hutchins, said that Business Secretary Jacob Rees Mogg, “is right to announce major relief on the cost of energy for businesses, charities and the public sector.”
But, she argued, “Businesses need longer term security against high gas and electricity bills. It’s now urgent that the government comes forward with a strategy to cut the vast costly energy waste from the sector’s many poorly insulated buildings.”
Outdated and inefficient radiator thermostats are a cause of significant energy waste, according to Danfoss, which says some 500m radiators across Europe could be upgraded, saving €12bn and 130TWh of energy per year.
Kjell Stroem, regional president of North Europe at Danfoss, describes it as a proven solution which has been widely used and effective in the Nordic countries for many years. “Energy prices are exploding, and energy is scarce. Even the simplest solutions can have a massive impact. The radiator thermostat was invented more than 80 years ago and yet there are more than 500m radiators in the EU with outdated and inefficient thermostats. If we replaced all of them, Europeans could save €12bn and 130 TWh of energy per year. The return on investment is typically very short and, with the current energy prices, the payback time can be as little as months.
The Sustainable Energy Association has published guidance for manufacturers and innovators of low carbon energy products on how to gain access to government energy efficiency schemes.
‘Helpful Information and Tips for Manufacturers and Innovators on Gaining Access to Government Energy Efficiency Schemes’ highlights challenges in getting innovative products installed under government schemes and provide options for engagement with the key stakeholders involved.
The advice focuses on engagement with the PAS 2035/2030 standard and the Standard Assessment Procedure
Julie Hirigoyen is to step down in the summer of 2023 as CEO of UKGBC, the not-for-profit, membership-led, industry network.. By the time of her departure, she will have successfully led the organisation for over eight years on a path of significant strategic growth and increasing impact. During her tenure, UKGBC has rapidly evolved from a small environmental NGO to a substantial and renowned organisation with a strong and important voice across the UK built environment sector.
California is planning to phase out natural gas-fired water heaters and furnaces, with a ban on the sale of new appliances from 2030.
Homes will be required to install zero-emissions alternatives, like electric heaters, instead.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted in favour of the ban to meet EPA regulations limiting ozone in the atmosphere to 70 parts per billion. Much of California still exceeds that limit.
“This will reduce the building sector’s carbon footprint and improve public health. We also appreciate the commitment to equity-centred engagement and community input in all stages of the process,” said Daniel Barad, senior policy advocate at Sierra Club California.
Buildings account for about 5 per cent of the state’s nitrogenoxide pollution, a key ingredient in California smog. CARB says nearly 90 per cent of those emissions are from space and water heaters. The rest comes from things like cooking and drying clothes.
The California Public Utilities Commission recently unanimously voted to get rid of subsidies that
incentivise builders to install gas lines to new buildings, starting next year. Public health experts say household air pollution from cooking with gas increases the risk of childhood asthma.
Gas furnaces in California won’t necessarily disappear in 2030. It just means that in eight years, there will only be zero-emission replacements as old furnaces and water heaters begin to break and need to be replaced. The legislation also comes with rebate money to help residents make the switch.
The decision is just one more step toward California achieving its most ambitious climate goal yet: carbon neutrality by 2045.
HVAC & Refrigeration Live (HVACR Live), the UK’s only dedicated national exhibition for the heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration sectors will take place from 18 to 19 April 2023 at London ExCel.
HVACR Live has been a part of the industry for many years, as well as in its former incarnation as the ACR Show. It has survived recessions and flourished in economic booms, taking place regularly and providing the UK HVACR sectors with a dedicated space to meet up and discuss industry matters.
Exhibitors that were scheduled to be a part of the 2020 HVACR Live have reconfirmed their attendance after the pause caused by Covid-19.
A new study from peer-reviewed scientific journal Joule has concluded that hydrogen has no realistic role to play in decarbonising home heating, and that options like heat pumps offer a better low-carbon solution.
Hydrogen is currently being promoted by the government as a ‘silver bullet’ as part of its heat in buildings strategy.
However the Joule report found that, compared to other alternatives such as heat pumps, solar thermal and district heating, hydrogen use for domestic heating is less economic, less efficient, more resource intensive, and associated with larger environmental impacts.
Cornwall Insight recently reached similar conclusions, saying that the use of hydrogen fuel could increase the cost of heating a home by as much as 90 per cent, compared to conventional natural gas.
The study’s author, Jan Rosenow, concludes that hydrogen is a ‘distraction’ in the context of home heating and would be better devoted to applications where few alternatives exist, such as steel making, shipping, and long-term energy storage for electricity production.
Countries where natural gas is a large part of their current energy mix need to reduce its consumption as a matter of urgency, warns the OECD’s chief economist, Álvaro Pereira (right).
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is the key intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries including the UK, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Its recommendations are regularly adopted in full by responsible member governments.
Pereira said the world
was paying a steep price for the Ukraine war, and Russia’s decision to restrict access to gas supplies more tightly than was forecast in June. However, the Paris-based policy organisation was most alarmed by the outlook across Europe, which is
most directly exposed to the fallout from the war.
He warned that a dependency on expensive gas for heavy industry and home heating will plunge the three main European users, Germany, Italy and the UK into a long
period of recession. He predicted no growth at all in the UK before 2024, when the next General Election is due. He said governments needed to encourage households and businesses to reduce their consumption of gas to help weather a difficult winter. Both Italy and Germany have already introduced purposeful programmes designed to cut gas consumption over this winter (see EiBI Sept 2022). Across the European Union all 27 member States have set up programmes designed to reduce overall gas demand over this winter by 15 per cent.
Now that he holds the purse strings it’s time for Kwasi Kwarteng to deploy the £3bn allocated to energy efficiency in the 2019 Conservative manifesto Chairman of the British Energy Efficiency Federation
Andrew Warren
This is the 300th column I have written concerning energy efficiency policy. The very first column I ever published was in the far-off days when Lord (Nigel) Lawson of Blaby was the energy secretary. It was called “Silent Nigel.”
In it, I castigated him, not for running the climate change denying pressure group the Global Warming Policy Foundation (that came much later) but my grouse with him then was simply that, as energy secretary, he had nothing whatsoever to say about the merits of saving energy. Or indeed the demerits.
When finally I was on a public platform with him, I challenged him for ignoring what we then called “the fifth fuel.” He dismissed the whole concept of regarding energy efficiency as a positive concept. “I can’t run my car on the fifth fuel, can I?” he scoffed. To which I recall retorting “Perhaps not, but surely you won’t need to fill it up so often if you pay attention to the fifth fuel?”
Since Lawson, there have, by my calculation, been 21 different Cabinet Ministers overseeing energy policy. Twenty of these have approached energy efficiency policy in a rather more positive way. Some have even genuinely regarded it as the “first fuel”, their top priority. And that is certainly how the International Energy Agency now bills it, in the fight to combat the threat of climate change. It reckons that energy saving will need to deliver at least half of the carbon savings required to deliver net zero worldwide. However, his just departed 21st successor, Kwasi Kwarteng, did seem to be taking a leaf out of the Lawson playbook. Given the net zero agenda. Given the enormous hikes in energy
costs. Given the exponential growth of households in fuel poverty. Given the concerns about gas availability caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine. Given all these factors, it might have been expected that the strategic case for energy efficiency would be made, publicly and regularly, by the Cabinet Minister officially in charge of this policy area.
But throughout his 20 months of tenure, there was an almost complete official silence from Kwarteng while he was the Business and Energy Secretary, about the potential role that reducing demand in a purposeful fashion can achieve regarding lessening both import and pricing pressures.
Inevitably, there are disparaging comparisons being made with the positive and innovative initiatives, emerged and emerging, from not just the European Commission, but practically every other western European government. Between them, the 27 member countries left in the European Union have committed to cut gas consumption by 15 per cent and electricity consumption by 10 per cent during this winter alone. And are well on course to do so.
In contrast, earlier this year, the UK managed to have the first ever energy policy strategy published in the past 50 years that entirely ignored the demand side of the energy equation. Subsequently, the Government published a Bill intended to deliver energy security. Which again entirely ignored any consideration about the
need to consider how to reduce the amount of energy wastage.
Kwarteng’s sole relevant publicity to date came in a tweet, intended entirely to disparage the Labour Party’s past record. When they left office in 2010, Kwarteng stated they had only ensured that 10 per cent of homes had achieved an energy performance certificate rating of C or above. Not so. Had he bothered to check the English Housing Condition Survey covering 2010, para 2.14 would have told him the correct figure then was not 10 per cent but 16.2 per cent. But apart from that? Omerta ruled.
So, Silent Kwasi? Certainly true
to date. But Silent Kwasi is following in the footsteps of Silent Nigel, and has now also become Chancellor of the Exchequer. He holds the purse strings. He should deploy all of the, as yet unallocated, near £3bn promised to promote energy efficiency in the winning 2019 Conservative manifesto.
This should not just be a matter just of publicising what an excellent idea it is to save fuel. It must also mean providing some real financial incentives to ensure such desirable investments really do occur.
So, come on, Kwasi. Throw off your Trappist robes. And turn energy efficiency back into being the “first fuel” so many of your recent predecessors know it should be. ■
their comfort. This might be as simple as having their own plug-in heater under their desk to keep warm if the building’s heating system is not providing enough warmth, or taping over air vents if the air conditioning is too cold. These will of course create control havoc and energy waste, not to mention potential safety concerns. Details like these should be checked regularly – for example as soon as the weather turns cooler the vents that are now producing warm air will not be as effective if they are partially covered.
With energy prices continuing to rise, Graeme Rees discusses some useful steps to ensure your building energy management system is ready for the winter months.
Graeme Rees
President of the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA)
A summer/winter changeover state may be configured within a system to govern the economic use of the heating, cooling and ventilation systems to suit the prevailing seasons. This is intended to reduce unnecessary simultaneous operation of the heating and cooling systems when the outside air temperature is above a predetermined value.
overheating in the warm months, your BEMS should be set up in zones to ensure that the cooling system works in those areas where it is required and separately set back where it is not.
As winter approaches there are further steps to ensure your building’s services are prepared for the colder weather ahead. Particular attention should be paid to the HVAC system, as its state of preparedness will affect the energy efficiency of the building and the level of comfort for its occupants.
There are multiple layers to the benefits smart technology and building controls when applying the ESG (environmental, social, governance) criteria, but with winter now looming many people’s attention will turn to keeping their buildings warm while simultaneously dealing with rising energy bills.
In the spring months, as outdoor temperatures rise, and the evenings become lighter, it can be a good time of year to give your BEMS a spring clean. For example, summer is a good time to consider zoning your control system if it hasn’t been done already.
If one side of the building is prone to
It is encouraging for the future that the innovative technology designed for managing buildings effectively is becoming more and more advanced and that it is being deployed in a diverse portfolio of properties, such as office buildings, schools, shopping centres, theatres and sporting venues. It will also benefit future generations that the technology is slowly
creeping further into the public eye.
One of the many sustainability measures deployed at the world famous Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, for example, includes 100 per cent renewable energy and Zero Scope 2 emissions with LED lighting (including all the floodlights) and high-efficiency building services systems in
It is also worth engaging with the occupants of the building regarding their personal comfort levels. Everybody is different and we will all have our own levels of what is too hot and what is too cold. This can create internal problems for workplace bosses who have an almost impossible task of keeping all of their staff happy and comfortable, as this has a direct knock-on effect on their levels of motivation and productivity. In some circumstances individuals might make small alterations to their own personal workspace to improve
A full inspection and service is therefore recommended. Air filters should be checked and changed if necessary and any damaged parts should be repaired or replaced. Vent work must be closely examined for leaks or holes as this will affect efficiency and the ventilation system should be checked to make sure exhaust gases are being ventilated from the building.
Frozen pipework is a common problem in the winter but this can be prevented with diligent care by checking that all freeze-protection devices and alarms are in good working order. Freeze stats and valves should be tested early before it gets cold. Pipes in unheated or minimally heated parts of the building should be wrapped and any cracks or openings sealed.
place to reduce energy use. It was therefore an ideal venue for delegates of the BCIA’s Young Engineers Network to visit
as it provided a perfect example of the exciting projects you can become involved in as a building controls engineer.
The BCIA has often emphasised that installing a BEMS is not the magic wand that will simply lead to cheaper energy costs. It is a common misconception that choosing a BEMS, installing it and sitting back to let it do its work will improve a building’s energy efficiency. It’s not as simple as that. A well designed and maintained BEMS will pay for itself over time in energy savings, however, ongoing control is important if you are going to get the best out of your BEMS, and a well managed BEMS can result in heating bills up to 35 per cent lower than in a poorly controlled building. When the hike in energy prices does come through then it is now surely more important than ever that you enable your BEMS to perform to its maximum potential.
Smart sensors may help make a building more efficient and pleasant for employees, but they do pose a cybersecurity problem. Peter Burbridge looks at how you can keep your buildings secure
Peter Burbridge Managing director of Pressac
hands it can cause serious disruption. Hackers know that and are continually working on new ways to exploit vulnerabilities within systems and get their hands on it.
As the use of smart technology in the workplace continues to grow exponentially, businesses are reaping the rewards of more efficient, connected buildings.
Helping to monitor everything from desk occupancy to CO₂ levels, smart sensors are becoming an increasingly important part of companies’ building and maintenance strategies, helping to make the offices of the future places where people actually want to work. They are also crucial in monitoring energy use and helping companies work towards their net zero goals.
But, for all their benefits, they also bring potential security risks, in a form that many companies will never have dealt with before. The proliferation of smart devices has created a whole new way for criminals to exploit businesses.
Smart technology is all about data – monitoring, capturing, sending and receiving it, in order to make your operations as efficient as possible. But if this data gets into the wrong
Smart technology here to stay Avoiding smart technology isn’t an option. It is a huge part of the new working world and isn’t going anywhere. The global smart buildings market is expected to be worth $127.9bn within the next five years.
But businesses which embrace it need to ensure they are fully aware of the cybersecurity implications it brings. As William Newton, president and MD of WiredScore, which rates the security of digital infrastructure in buildings, explains: “All IoT devices present possible entry points for hackers. Letting any one of these go unprotected is the digital equivalent of leaving a small window open downstairs when you leave the premises.”
There are a number of things that can be done to ensure your smart systems
don’t leave your business vulnerable. The first things is to make sure the partners and products you choose meet critical standards. Second, ensure that cybersecurity is considered at every stage of the supply chain process. There are a number of things you should look out for:
● Do they have ISO27001 accreditation? – this is an international standard on how to manage information security. Organisations and their products are audited to make sure they are following the correct procedures and protocols. Buying from a supplier with this accreditation gives you reassurance that your data is being protected to as high a standard as possible;
● Have devices been penetration tested/pen-tested? – this involves professional hackers trying their best to infiltrate a system, identifying areas of weakness that manufacturers can then rectify before their product goes to market;
● How is the data encrypted? –encryption is the equivalent of a hugely complicated code that hackers would have to crack in order to be able to view your data. Most smart sensors use AES, the Advanced Encryption Standard. Pressac’s products use Enocean AES-128, which means the code is 128-bits long. It’s estimated that
it would take even the smartest computer systems around 100bn years to crack; and ● How is your data being sent to the cloud? – some sensors use your existing IT network to send data, which introduces an extra layer of vulnerability. Keeping the data separate from existing systems gives added security. This can be done by using products – like Pressac’s Smart Gateway - that transmit the data using 4G, keeping it away from your existing network.
Have defined systems and processes in place and ensure people are clear on their responsibilities. Smart technology is used across every part of a workspace, meaning the internet is no longer just the preserve of the IT department. It takes information technology out into every part of the business and can no longer be seen solely as their responsibility.
With smart sensors controlling things like heating, lighting and ventilation, as well as monitoring energy levels, it will often be facilities managers tasked with rolling it out and it’s absolutely crucial that they have an understanding of the technology and its safety implications.
Fear of adopting new technology often stems from lack of internal expertise. But training, upskilling, consultancy and external support is all widely available to help make sure your IoT devices are being utilised in the safest and most secure way.
Invest in the right training and ensure awareness of cybersecurity risks is high throughout your organisation. Every employee has a part to play.
Being wary of smart technology is no bad thing, but businesses should not let this stop them from reaping the multiple benefits it can bring. Instead, channel this caution in to ensuring the systems you implement are the safest and most secure they can be.
The businesses that have the most success in implementing smart technology will be the ones that consider all the potential security implications from the outset and invest time and money in the safest systems and the most stringent cybersecurity policies.
Taking the right steps now means you can embrace smart technology without the fear, enjoying the benefits it brings without leaving your organisation vulnerable. ■
Smart sensors bring a wealth of data that might be a gateway for hackers
The digitisation of buildings can deliver greater security and sustainability
microgrids, producing enough energy to power themselves and other buildings in their vicinity. Not only does this provide green energy, but such microgrids can also ensure resilience in the face of broader grid failures. For building owners, combining energy procurement and efficiency can turn a building’s energy management into an asset rather than an expense.
There is also potential to tap into the electric vehicles (EV) sector, another promising pathway into a more sustainable future. The observable growth of EVs demands an equal growth of power supply and infrastructures. More regulations will also come into place and policies need changing to ensure EVs are introduced in mass as seamlessly as possible. Building management systems can potentially produce a stream of information that can inform planning decisions that effectively incorporate EVs into our daily lives with minimal disruption to our power supply systems.
owners should have already taken. Digital technologies take this a step further - driving improvements through insights to really bring about revolutionary change.
Responsible for 40 per cent of the planet’s total greenhouse gas emissions, buildings continue to hold untapped potential in tackling climate change. The digitisation of buildings can deliver better safety, security, and sustainability, and the technologies needed to deliver on this smart building vision already exist. Investing in them is crucial to deliver a more sustainable future.
Creating a net zero building ecosystem requires a two-pronged strategy that focuses on the present and the future. First, ambitious pragmatism in mitigating the problems of the existing building stock – this is where digital retrofitting comes in. Second, turning aspirational future gazing into immediate action for new buildings from the get-go.
Many buildings have lifetimes of a century or more, so retrofitting them with net-zero technologies must become standard with immediate effect. This means moving from fossil-fuel-based heating and power to renewable and sustainable sources – a move that building
Easily retrofitted Sensor, IoT (internet-of-things) technologies are now part of many new builds and can be easily retrofitted within older buildings to deliver actionable insights on inefficient energy use. IoT energy management systems allow facility managers to make informed decisions that benefit both their bottom line and their carbon footprint. These choices can be automated to be even more effective. For example, weather prediction software can automatically regulate building operations according to upcoming weather patterns. Such insight can also enhance building experiences for users – monitoring room capacities, air, and lighting quality, among many other comfort factors.
There is a clear desire for an overhaul of the building sector.
However, in a crucial time when the energy crisis continues to affect individuals and businesses alike, efficiency is the key to generate savings in both carbon and money. For too long the focus has been on the switch to renewables. Whilst important, around 30 per cent of building power goes to waste. Renewable energies have limited benefits if our buildings continue to waste energy at the current rate.
Tracking and measuring our energy consumption with smart technology is an open goal for creating efficient buildings in both the public and private sectors. Smart buildings, bristling with IoT sensors, can offer real-time data analytics and insights, allowing public sector facilities decision-makers to spend more wisely, whilst improving occupant experience.
We talk about decarbonising buildings and efficiently using all power generated. If all this is possible, it is certainly feasible for us to aim higher for those built today or over the next 20 years. Combining the potential of IoT technology with the development in self-healing buildings is an exciting and potentially game-changing prospect.
Energy positive buildings – those that create more energy than they use through renewable means – are the long-term goal. New buildings fitted with wind or solar energy generating capabilities are already acting as
Overhauling older buildings can be an extremely complex task, particularly as we deal with new technologies most older buildings have not tapped into. With new regulations informing what our next steps should be, it is crucial that facility managers seek external expert advice, not only to understand recent technologies and processes, but how to best leverage them to ensure targets are met. This valuable knowledge also helps to ensure organisations can maximise results out of their investments, with appropriate strategies to implement them.
The solutions that support the sustainability goals of a company need to rely not only on technology but also the human resources to deploy, analyse, and act upon the insights provided by said technology. Experts can help drive continuous efficiency and sustainability performance in the long-term, ensuring the digital services deliver energy positive buildings through their entire lifecycle.
What can we do now to pursue sustainable building goals?
Retrofitting our older buildings with modern technology should be a top priority to reach net zero as soon as possible. We must then set even higher standards for brand-new buildings. To truly revolutionise the building industry and support a more sustainable future, we must set new energy-positive efficiency targets instead of net-zero ones and choose best instead of better.
The Mount Oswald student accommodation site at Durham University serves John Snow College and the brand-new South College. The purpose-built facility provides rooms for 1000 students and offers accommodation, common rooms, welfare facilities and café bars.
Work began on the project site in 2018. The project’s value at the time was circa £75m and it is let under a 50-year PPP. The Joint Venture Partnership of Campus Living Villages, Equitix and Interserve submitted the winning bid.
Evaluating the capital cost, running cost and service cost of any proposed solution was fundamental to the viability of the bid. BSAP Ltd. was appointed to produce a design concept for building services within the scheme.
Martyn Harrison of BSAP explains, “Our philosophy is fabric first – making the building thermally efficient. Our DNA is trying to get away with as few building services as we can. Being instrumental in the early stages of the design process is so important in ensuring that building services are not an add on, but fundamental to the architect’s scheme.”
Where appropriate, BSAP will advocate an all-electric system
and this was the case with Mount Oswald - he explains, “Some initial concepts had been put forward before the contract was awarded. One of them involved a district heating network because Durham [University] has experience of this around its estate and there was quite a strong desire to go down that route. However, we didn’t feel that was the right solution because a lot of energy is used to heat and pump medium temperature or LTHW through huge distribution networks.”
To control the electric heating BSAP researched what was available. During conversations with student accommodation providers, they noted that Prefect Irus was mentioned numerous times. The simplicity and cost effectiveness of Irus was a big draw.
“We were sold on it primarily due to its compliance with reducing carbon use,” Harrison added. “Energy efficiency in terms of only using heat when it is needed; and it is a very competitive CAPEX/OPEX. A lot of the big schemes are looking at a 50-year lifespanmeaning replacement of all the infrastructure of the building services at years 20-25.”
regulator to synchronise before transferring the loads.
Smart circuit breakers provide microgrid control thanks to four in-built digital capabilities: accurate metering, diagnostics, communication and decision-making based on pre-programmed functions. These can be combined into bundles to suit applications.
The market for microgrids is growing fast. What has held it back is the high cost of industrial control systems. Nigel Thomas explains how smart circuit breakers provide the solution
Accurate measurement of voltage, current, frequency and power provide the data that underpins the analysis and decision-making algorithms. Meanwhile, compatibility with multiple communication standards means that the controller is capable of remote monitoring and reporting. Crucially, this also ensures compatibility and interoperability with older devices and those from multiple different vendors. In addition, the modular design of controllers provides the flexibility to extend the system to cover new generators and loads in the future.
National specification manager and projects sales manager at ABB
Nigel Thomas www.global.abbThere are many small to medium-sized commercial and public authority sites across the UK that could operate as microgrids. All these cases could combine multiple low or zero carbon energy generation sources such as wind and solar, and biomass combined heat and power (CHP) hydrogen or bio-fuel standby generators. They also control the supply of the load in buildings, air source heat pumps and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, with the use of battery energy storage to balance supply and demand. They often have an import / export grid connection to trade energy when a surplus is available.
Until recently, most microgrids have been large sites that operate at the multi-megawatt level. These need an industrial SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system. However, for small or medium sites, SCADA systems are costly. It’s now possible to use a smart circuit breaker in conjunction with a microgrid logic controller to achieve a similar level of protection and control.
Balancing multiple energy sources and loads requires a control system based on hardware and software to protect against overloads and equipment failures, monitor power flows throughout the system, protect power quality and provide rapid decision making. It needs to provide the required ramping and transient response to sudden grid events, and sudden changes in loads and renewable generation output. It should also provide a seamless transition between grid-connected and islanded states.
All of this can be achieved with input from the latest generation of low-voltage circuit breakers. The controller in the circuit breaker will identify a fault, loss of supply or imbalance within the microgrid while operating in island mode, through continuous monitoring of frequency
and voltage. In turn, this will trigger the microgrid controller to instigate the automatic transfer of power via the circuit breakers to the grid connection or stand-by generation.
In order to balance the loads, it might then carry out load shedding to prioritise and disconnect noncritical loads. For example, building occupants are unlikely to notice a pause in service from the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
During this, it is essential the controller respects minimum run times to avoid damaging sensitive equipment. If demand continues to exceed renewable output, the controller may also call on energy storage and ramp a generator up.
This new generation of technology combines operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). This needs operators to learn new digital skills, similar to the way that society transitioned from landlines to smartphones. To help them adapt, training will be an important part of projects.
One site in Greater Manchester is a proof of concept for the UK. Oldham Council is developing a microgrid as part of a major refurbishment of its Environmental Services depot. The first phase of the project is due for completion in spring 2023 and will integrate solar photovoltaic panels, an air source heat pump, a 500kVA grid connection, multiple EV charging points and loads from new and existing buildings.
Similar logic can also be used for power management for any site when it is connected to the external grid. In this case, the circuit breaker will disconnect loads to keep power consumption below a set threshold. As a result, the operator can be certain that they will not incur penalty charges by exceeding their peak halfhourly demand under the DCP 161 regulation.
By continuing to monitor grid frequency and voltage, the controller’s algorithm will automatically reconnect to the grid when fault conditions are over. To achieve this, it will speed up or slow down the site generator’s voltage
In the longer term, and subject to funding, the council has an objective for the site to become carbon negative under a planned second phase. This will integrate CHP units fuelled by hydrogen from biomass gasification units. In addition, a battery energy storage system will absorb and inject energy to keep the CHP units running at optimum speed. This will avoid the need to ramp the generators up and down in line with changing demand and will minimise maintenance requirements.
The long-term goal is that the depot site will be energy self-sufficient and generate more renewable energy than it needs, making it carbon negative. That will give the council the ability to offset the carbon footprint from other buildings that cannot meet the Net Zero goal.
John Beardmore, managing director, T4 Sustainability Ltd
What is it? First perhaps, we should ask what is the Internet? In a nutshell, the Internet is the network arising from the linking of devices using TCP/IP protocols. These are the protocols that allow the transmission and routing of packets of information across local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). It is the ability to route packets between LANs via WANs that has perhaps made the biggest contribution to the success of TCP/IP as the dominant networking protocol in global use.
Which things? Well, anything really. Two traditional barriers to the networking everyday items has been the cost relative to the benefit gained, and difficulty of physically connecting to the net. These problems are dwindling rapidly as ICT costs fall and wireless WiFi becomes commonplace, so you can network your TV, washing machine or fridge.
Closely associated with the Internet of things are ideas like Smart Cities. I’ve seen a lot of exhibition stands proclaiming that smart cities will
transform our lives, but I haven’t seen many new or innovative types of project. On occasions I’ve wondered if the emperor has no clothes.
Many Smart Cities projects seem to focus on giving information about traffic congestion, public transport schedules, the availability of parking, energy billing and pollution monitoring. All worthy stuff; but these are hardly new ideas; what’s changed perhaps is that implementation is now cheap enough that more cities, and institutions and companies within them, can undertake useful projects.
Also linked to the idea of Smart Cities is the idea of big data. Big data might be seen as very large diverse datasets which can be analysed to find meaning which is not apparent by looking at small amounts of data in isolation. In the context of Smart Cities, much of this data is likely to come from the Internet of Things (IoT).
While individual datasets from IoT projects may not appear particularly exciting, it is perhaps the emergent
opportunities to understand complex behaviours found through the analysis of big data that will in the end prove useful.
This gives rise to my first plea. If we are to be free to look for meaningful information within big datasets, access to this data needs to be affordable and ideally free. There is a surprising amount of open data out there, check out the Open Data Institute¹ .
As members of the energy industry, our main interest is likely to focus on energy, and as a community we have some experience with IoT like technology in the form of environmental monitoring, automatic meter reading (AMR), building management systems (BMS), and Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS). Even if we haven’t direct experience of installing these and setting them up, most of us with energy audit and opportunity assessment experience will have recommended them to clients with complex and ill-controlled heating and cooling needs, while perhaps feeling that while the suggestion has to be made, the client won’t want to spend many tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds on such a system.
Where BMS has already been installed on a site, it’s not uncommon to hear of problems. These include having capital funding to install the system but no revenue funding to
left on default settings; no in-house staff having any knowledge of the system; system now obsolete so can’t be maintained or expanded; system now obsolete so modern laptops can’t program it (wrong operating system, wrong physical ports).
The fact remains that BMS is still expensive. One example from my own work is the Galleries of Justice Museum in Nottingham. It’s a listed building to which minimal energysaving improvements can be made, which like many museums, struggles to break even, despite the contribution it makes to our education and culture.
The Galleries of Justice first installed a BMS around 2001, and it worked reasonably well. There was no funding for annual servicing and calibration however, and no staff had any knowledge of how to reconfigure it. Over time, the roles of some parts of the building changed, and some parts of the BMS system including the user interface had broken down by 2011, but most parts of the BMS carried on doing what they always had.
In 2015 we looked into restoring the BMS, but were told that it was obsolete, not least because the modern laptops used had no serial ports that could talk to the old BMS. While clearly there are other issues in play, it seemed to me that there was a desire on the part of the installers to start again. They offered a new system for £41,500 plus £3,300 per year for subsequent maintenance.
I sat down with the museum manager and we did a back of envelope calculation. If a new system costs for example £40,000 and lasts 20 years, a naïve calculation indicates that it might be seen as depreciating in value at a rate of £2,000 per year. In addition, there might be annual maintenance fees of say £3,000 per year. For the cost of such a BMS to be justified then, it has to save energy and staff time to the value of at least £5,000 per year. It is accepted that some of the benefits of BMS relate to environmental improvement, convenience, and other less tangible gains than money saved, but this is one of the perspectives from which a BMS purchasing decision should be evaluated. By our rough calculation the value of fuel and time saved by the use of a classic BMS would be on the order of half the cost of the BMS.
Of course, this rough calculation could be criticised. For example, fuel prices might rise over time, and the new system might not last twenty years (its predecessor didn’t!) but
many sectors, and delivering excellent tools and solutions in others. No doubt by now, everybody will have heard of the Linux and Android operating systems, and perhaps LibreOffice.
So are there any open source AMR, BMS or BEMS solutions out there? Or can you make your own? And if you want to make your own, what constitutes a good system?
there seemed to be little point in trying to finesse the calculation given how far the proposed system was from financial viability.
The Galleries of Justice Museum in Nottingham faced a dilemma over replacing a BMS of Power over Ethernet (PoE for short), has allowed the Ethernet cable to carry the necessary low voltage electrical supply in many situations. Another interesting trend is the rise of devices which use low power radio, which can harvest enough energy, from for example light or mechanical switch movement, to power their electronic and radio circuits. See the Enocean web site for examples
An article in The Economist² indicates that in the 1990s “the cost of a unit of computer processing power has fallen by 99 per cent over the decade” and “Over the past 30 years the price of computer processing power has declined by an annual average of 30 per cent in real terms; telecoms prices have been plunging at a similar pace over the past decade”.
Put less formally, the MIStupid³ website recounts the old joke in which Bill Gates is alleged to say that “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon”. I don’t know whether Bill Gates really said this, but the joke makes the point well, that electronic revolution has massively reduced the cost and increased the functionality of most kinds of electronic equipment, and this trend shows no sign of slowing down.
Given that the cost of most electronic equipment has fallen for decades, and energy prices have increased, I have to ask why BMS and energy management controls in general are still so expensive. One contributing factor might have been the dedicated wiring that was usually used, which had to run throughout the building. More recently however, it has become possible for elements of a BMS system to be linked by radio (including WiFi), as well as the hardwired Ethernet of corporate LANs. Most equipment attached to a BMS still needs a power supply, but the rise
In recent years there have been some promising developments in the array of commercial products. Honeywell Evohome deserves honourable mention as a lower cost control system which allows one set-point per zone, and one zone per room operation, with ‘box on the wall’ and web interfaces. Although intended as a domestic heating controller, there has been some success using this in larger buildings, by, for example, installing one system per floor. Although not the most flexible product (only one set-point, so no provision to control cooling for example), this sort of system might offer an intermediate price solution for the Galleries of Justice museum which could be viable, given that the primary requirement is to offer a wellzoned heating control system with a reasonable user interface.
So given the high cost of traditional BMS, and the inflexibility of many of the cheaper solutions, are there any other options which reflect the falling prices of ICT equipment and services?
The open source movement has made huge inroads over the last few years, gaining large market shares in
Open source options have emerged. Honourable mention in the UK must go to Open Energy Monitor⁶ in Wales, who are building a growing range of energy monitoring tools based around low cost Atmel ATmega and Raspberry Pi Arm based computers⁶. Although there is a plethora of microcontroller platforms available, these two have led the charge in recent years, in delivering best productivity per pound spent to developers, and a great deal of community support and open source software is available to provide templates for project development on both of these platforms. The similarities and differences between them are instructive however.
The ATmega chips found for example on the various open source Arduino boards⁸ have small amounts of memory. The Atmega328 for example has 32 kilobytes of built in flash memory which is typically used for storing a program, and a mere 2 kilobytes of RAM memory, but has easily accessible timer/ counters, interrupts, serial interface, digital input/output (I/O) pins, six analogue inputs, and watchdog timer. This simple environment can only run small programs, and network communication to other devices is limited, but for simple measurements which might depend on very precise timings, the Arduino products are hard to beat, and boards with this type of chip are available for a little as a few pounds. These don’t have an operating system in the Windows or Linux sense, but do use various protocols for loading the program that will define the function of the chip.
The Raspberry Pi comes in a number of versions. Pick the one which best meets your needs. Each uses a ‘System On a Chip’ (SOC) which has an impressive 512 megabytes of RAM, and gigabytes of flash memory accessible on low-cost interchangeable SD cards. Again there are timers, interrupts, a serial interface, digital I/O and a watchdog timer, but no analogue I/O. This allows the loading of large and complex operating systems, which in turn allows the running of many tasks at once, with access to
many tasks at once, with access to the Internet over wired Ethernet or WiFi. Because access to the hardware is controlled by the kernel of the operating system, it is not as easy to directly exploit the system hardware as it is with ATmega based systems, though the Pi can be used with additional external chips, or Arduino systems, to provide these facilities.
It isn’t uncommon to see designs in which these two types of system together, the ATmega side providing very precisely timed operations and analogue data, and the Pi providing much more processing power, user interface, and network connectivity.
A lot of open source work has also been done in the home automation sector which tends to focus on heating controls, lighting, appliances, media systems and security. Some examples can be seen online⁵. While these are not necessarily what you’d want in a BMS system, some of the systems might form a starting point for other projects. A Greek company, Plegma Labs⁷ has developed solutions from the openHAB code base. Plegma is also interested in developing ways for existing building automation products to interoperate.
One lesson from these systems (and some personal history in software development) is that you can make your own building automation systems, and conceptually it isn’t very hard. The fundamental algorithms in most BMS systems needn’t be particularly complex; there is probably more to learn about communications and the interfaces if you want what you develop to be easy to use.
So for an AMR or BMS system, what constitutes good design?
Well, the system needs to be scalable, modular and flexible, so it can be deployed on any scale from a single computer with perhaps a simple web based interface to view recorded data, to a system consisting of a network of many such machine, each taking measurements and / or controlling equipment, with user interfaces to allow effective control, and logging of activities to allow analysis and optimisation of behaviour. All such systems need to be set up to allow high system availability and reliability. These requirements give rise to some approaches which might not be adopted by the typical amateur enthusiast, who are not used to working with machines that are left to function for years at a time without human intervention.
All computer systems crash from
time to time. Yours are unlikely to be an exception. In a system which controls critical equipment. The important thing is not so much ensuring that it can never crash under any circumstances, as making sure that when it does crash, it recovers quickly, and resumes its normal function with minimal loss of data and control. The idea of a watchdog timer is to monitor the activities which should normally be occurring, and restart the system if they are not. This can be achieved either using software or hardware, but with software watchdog timers, there is always some risk that the machine will crash before the watchdog is initialised, so reset never occurs; hardware watchdogs have an edge.
Allowing a machine with a complex operating system like Linux or Windows to be reset without a proper shutdown tends to corrupt the flash memory where the operating system and programs are stored, so the use
of watchdog while necessary, is not sufficient to deliver the necessary reliability.
Two issues which bedevil systems which boot from SD cards are corruption of the card if the system crashes or is shutdown incorrectly, and failure of the card caused over time by repeated rewriting of parts of the flash memory. The simple solution is to run the system with the flash memory accessed as a read only device. Ideally it should only be written to during development work, and all logged data should be written to RAM for short term local use, or over networks to machines with conventional magnetic disks for archive use. (A compromise is to add a second flash drive to the machine which is only has data written to it perhaps for a few seconds or minutes every hour. This increases the likely life of the SD card compared to writing small amounts of data, perhaps every minute).
To meet our own needs, and I’ve decided to make this an open source
project, I’ve developed a number of software modules (servers) which act as modular programs to offer interfaces to physical sensors and actuators, with other programs (clients) which interact with the real world via the server processes. Because these programs talk to each other over the network, they needn’t all run on the same machine, and the machines they run on can be located anywhere.
To accompany this software, we’ve designed a board, open source hardware this time, which is intended to provide all the supporting electronics that a Raspberry Pi usually needs to function in an AMR, BMS or BEMS application, including various power supply configurations, a hardware watchdog timer, analogue and digital I/O, a prototyping area to meet bespoke needs, and connectors to make it as easy as possible to link the system to external wiring.
Together this software and hardware forms a useful template for all sorts of IoT projects, though my emphasis has been on energy measurement. Some introductory information about this is available on the net⁹ .
If you’re going to release open source materials, it’s sensible to pick one of the standard open source licenses. These are boring but important reading, as the licence you pick will determine who can use your work, and how they can use it. Many websites offer guidance on this¹⁰, but there is no substitute for reading the licences and seeking legal advice.
It’s impossible to go into the details of IoT development in a single article, but I expect I’m not alone in starting to develop IoT projects. I’m going to suggest then, that anyone who’s interested in this field might contact me, and we might establish an online forum to allow discussion of these issues and the support of each other’s work.
●
If you’re interested, please email me at John@T4sLtd.co.uk
References
http://theodi.org/
http://www.economist.com/node/457272
http://mistupid.com/jokes/msvgm.htm
https://www.enocean.com/en/products/
https://opensource.com/life/16/3/5-opensource-home-automation-tools
https://openenergymonitor.org/emon/
http://pleg.ma/
https://www.arduino.cc/
http://t4sustainability.co.uk/oBeMS/
http://choosealicense.com/
As ESTA celebrates its 40th birthday, Mervyn Pilley explains how the organisation is preparing to adapt to the future demands of a fast-changing energy market
Executive director of ESTA (Energy Services and Technology Association)
On September 8 we held our first ever hybrid members meeting and our 2022 AGM. At the suggestion of the members present we tuned into hear the brand-new Prime Minister make her announcement of the energy support mechanisms. As her speech unfolded news came through that the Queen was unwell and members of the Royal family were on their way to Balmoral. The rest is, of course, history. The meeting itself covered a wide-ranging discussion around a reorganisation of ESTA. This focused on how a 40-year-old trade association could look to reflect more accurately what is going on in the energy world today. My wide-ranging proposals included setting up a number of new groups looking at areas where ESTA has not traditionally ventured but where there appears to be a gap in the support mechanisms available. The proposed groups include microgeneration, cyber security, AI in
construction, demand side response and commercial retrofit. The intention is that these will be more informally structured groups than the current existing four groups in ESTA. I would stress that these groups will continue. One of my underlying reasons for looking at the structure was tied into my feeling that end users/customers are, more than ever, looking for endto-end solutions, and in addition more ESTA members are starting to operate in a number of different areas of the sector to those they have traditionally occupied.
The other aspect of creating more groups is a desire to broaden out our existing council both in terms of numbers and also sector experience and expertise. Running a trade association in a rapidly changing environment. At the moment the statement ‘rapidly changing’ is something of an understatement. It is getting harder to keep up with all aspects of what is going on. A larger council should help me to deal with that aspect of the role. It is vitally important that ESTA continues to get feedback from its members.
The current situation is that we will be circulating a ‘green paper’ on the proposed changes to all members with
a view to implementing the new more inclusive ESTA for 2023.
I mentioned the statement by Liz Truss on the 8th of September. Regular readers of this column will know how passionate I am in supporting the SME market. The major concern to me is that while businesses and other non-residential users have been promised six months of support on energy prices the situation after that period is still incredibly vague. There is just a promise that the Secretary of State will be carrying out a review of which sectors will be deemed worthy of ongoing support. It is impossible to see how businesses in a post pandemic, post Brexit World are expected to plan for their business continuity for just six months ahead. This reaffirms the view of many that
a complete lack of understanding about how businesses operate in the real world is sadly lacking from the Ministerial knowledge bank.
There have also been a lot of rumours circulating that the new Cabinet is planning to put on hold the energy security bill that was already in process. The general consensus is that this would not necessarily be a bad thing if the Government wanted to bring in more of the things it missed when drafting the bill – especially with regards to a national retrofit plan and far more focus on energy efficiency measures. Regrettably, for humankind and our planet, it would seem that instead the reason for delay is so that the Government can explore restarting fracking, delaying the creation of more solar energy supply, and trying to ensure that nuclear power stations are kept open.
As I am writing this the start of a Net Zero review process has been announced with the focus being on ensuring that businesses are not being disadvantaged by our 2050 goal for Net Zero. I can only express my feelings that this is completely starting from the wrong end. Surely the whole point of all of the collaboration activity that took place leading up to COP26 involving the business sector was that they had a vital role to play and in general it was recognised that doing the right thing for the environment would give businesses a competitive edge going forward. I suspect that the new review is going to seek to damage much of the good work done last year and give UK plc ‘permission’ to stop worrying about reaching Net Zero targets if it in any way threatens their profits and investment plans. Hugely disappointing and also of great concern for our ‘report card’ due to be submitted for COP27.
I understand that this issue is going to be hitting the EiBI stand at the Smart Buildings Show (October 12-13, ExCel London) and we will again be hosting an energy efficiency zone at the show. I have already mentioned that the meeting we held on the eighth was a hybrid event with equal numbers of members attending physically and virtually. It would appear that the appetite for certain types of physical events has returned but frustratingly the jury still is out on whether this applies to all events or just exhibitions. If any readers are happy to share their thoughts on this topic, please email me at mervyn@estaenergy.org.uk
As UK decarbonisation gathers momentum, CIAT UK is collaborating with consultants and distribution partners in a pioneering approach to help schools transition to lowcarbon heating technologies as part of a planned, phased strategy. The project follows Carrier’s recent successful Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) projects for more than 60 schools in London, the Midlands and Yorkshire.
A phased approach is working at Kepier School in north east England, which installed seven new gas boilers three years ago. CIAT UK worked with project partners BReng Hull, consultant AA Projects, installer Quora Group and
equipment supplier Cool Designs, to help develop a long-term decarbonisation plan for the school, with funding under the Condition Improvement Fund (CIF).
A heating audit at the school identified the requirements for a new system of high-efficiency heat emitters. New high-level CIAT fan coil units (FCUs) were mounted within ceilings and on surfaces, allowing the equipment to be installed while the school continued to operate with the existing heating system still using the
gas boilers.
The project included removal of conventional radiators and replacement with 31 CIAT COADIS and seven MajorLine FCUs.
Step one in the decarbonisation process is now delivering significant energy savings for the school. The savings have been enhanced due to the high 80ºC water before the new heat emitters were installed. The new system has reduced the water temperature to 50ºC. www.ciat.uk.com
Staff at the Lloyds Bank in Chatham, Kent, are benefitting from highly sustainable heating, thanks to the installation of a new 48kW AEROTOP M heat pump from ELCO HEATING SOLUTIONS. The new heat pump has replaced ageing and inefficient gas boilers, with the new unit providing a zero NOx system and highly efficient heating throughout the office building.
Located on the roof of the three-storey building, the new ELCO heat pump is providing space heating to the main office areas on the second and third floors, as well as stairwells and washrooms. To accommodate the lower flow temperatures of the AEROTOP unit, the refurbishment also included the upgrade of heat emitters to Type 33 radiators. The
system is now delivering highly efficient heating, and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group’s desire to remove inefficient systems from its property portfolio and be carbon neutral by 2030. www.elco.co.uk
The drought this summer has thrown water conservation into sharp focus. Karma Loveday looks at how water retailers are finally waking up to the need to innovate
Referring to this summer’s drought, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, commented that “a complete gear change is needed” in how everyone uses and values water. ‘Everyone’ very much means businesses as well as households.
For while we might hope that the clear strain on water resources this summer has been a blip on the back of freak high temperatures, the evidence suggests we might in fact see a future where water is more scarce, more often.
At the time of writing, 11 of the Environment Agency’s 14 English areas are formally classified as in drought, along with a large part of Wales. There are exceptionally low river flows and groundwater levels. Reservoir levels have declined with some well below average for the time of year – a product of both the dry conditions and high demand. There are serious environmental impacts, including to wildlife.
Alarmingly, if no action is taken to avert it, water resource planning experts have forecast that demand will outstrip supply to the tune of 4,000 mega litres of water a day by 2050 – driven by the need to reduce abstraction to support healthy rivers, as well as by population growth and climate change. There are, of course, plans to address this – but these depend heavily on everyone doing their bit.
While it might be tempting for businesses to blame others and wait for them to fix it – a lot of the media coverage about the drought has pointed the finger squarely at water company leakage levels, for instance – taking a proactive stance on water efficiency is in businesses’ best interests. Using and wasting less will reduce bills (water, and energy where water is heated) and increase resilience, whatever the climate brings.
It is therefore particularly
making group in the retail market – has identified water efficiency as one of three priority outcomes it wants to deliver. On top of that, water retailers and wholesalers have collaborated to put together a water efficiency action plan and associated road map to deliver five headline actions:
● develop a shared view with policy makers and regulators of the scale of short term and longer term non household (NHH) water efficiency ambition;
● improve understanding of the nature of NHH water consumption through smarter use and better sharing of data;
● improve engagement of retailers in the water resource planning process;
● address wider regulatory and other relevant barriers to NHH water efficiency, including reviewing tariffs, targets, incentives and penalties; and
disappointing that the retail market, where businesses can change their water retailer in pursuit of lower charges or better services, has largely failed to deliver much in the way of water efficiency innovation. The reasons for this are complex. They include that there are greater incentives for water wholesalers to focus on reducing household consumption than non-household.
The good news is this fundamental conundrum has been acknowledged and there are policy and regulatory changes underway that should improve the situation. These include:
● Defra is consulting on a mandatory water efficiency label for waterusing products like taps, toilets and kitchen appliances. This will assist consumer choice and push up standards;
● There is a new target under the Environment Act, to reduce the use of public water supply in England per head of population by 20 per cent by 2037 against a 2019/20 baseline, using a Distribution Input (DI) over population metric. The use of DI will ensure non-household demand is taken into account as well as household demand and leakage. There is a 9 per cent reduction sub target for non household demand;
● Ofwat has proposed a new target for water companies to meet in 2025 - 30 based on total water demand, which again would incorporate business consumption; and
● The Strategic Panel – the newly created and most senior decision-
● understand customer needs and raise the profile of water efficiency with businesses and their customers.
All these developments tend in the right direction. However, there is a long road ahead, and water efficiency looks set to remain challenging for business customers in the short term, despite the clear need for a “complete gear change”.
Tellingly, in its press release responding to Ofwat’s proposals for the next water price review, PR24, water efficiency specialist Waterwise criticised the water regulator for rendering water efficiency “way too niche”.
It called, among other things, for Ofwat to require at least 20 per cent of total water company spend in water resources management plans to be spent on water efficiency. It continued: “Currently water companies in England are spending less than £3 per customer a year on actual water efficiency delivery.”
Future investment in, and funding for, water efficiency will be an important issue as prices are set for the 2025-30 period at PR24. One piece of work, undertaken by consultancy Economic Insight, advocated for a transparent, ringfenced water efficiency levy to be applied through an increase in water wholesale costs for all non-household customers. It reasoned this was because customers’ willingness to pay for water efficiency is below the efficient cost to supply these services.
To prevent legionella water should be stored below 20ºC or above 60ºC
Ed Morris details how the installation and management of individual components can play a key role maintaining the safety and hygiene of a building’s water system
guidance on regulations on managing legionella bacteria in water systems states that operators should:
Different water systems, fitted in different sized buildings, and with different purposes, have varying challenges. However, most water systems face universal safety and hygiene challenges that must be managed to ensure that end-users remain safe.
Hygiene challenges that occur in water systems derive from harmful bacteria which grow in stagnant water stored at between 20–60°C.
To eliminate hygiene challenges and rid the system of harmful bacteria like legionella, it makes sense to keep water stored and distributed at temperatures above 60°C to thermally disinfect systems, without use of chemicals (which can also have a negative impact on the safety of end-users). Thermal disinfection, however, poses a scalding risk to the end user which must be controlled by components.
There are many components to a water system, which all must be kept in pristine condition to ensure that they operate effectively.
The Health and Safety Executive’s approved code of practice and
“Consider the individual nature of the site and system as a whole, including deadlegs and parts of the system used intermittently. These should be included because they can create particular problems, as microbial growth can go unnoticed. When they are brought back online, they can cause heavy contamination, which could disrupt the efficacy of the water treatment regime.”
For this reason, it is recommended that:
● Thermostatic mixing valves (TMVs) are installed as close to the water outlet as possible;
● Multiple TMVs should be used in the case of multiple outlets;
● The movement of water through the system should be controlled, preventing the flow of stagnant water; and
● ‘Sentinel’ outlets must be identified and checked monthly, with hot water and coldwater cylinders needing to be cleaned and checked for debris periodically.
So, utilising the following components can help in the management of the entire system’s hygiene and safety:
● Thermostatic mixing valves (TMVs);
● Flow through vessels; and
● Thermal balancing valves.
TMVs keep water temperatures safe by blending hot and cold water and maintaining it at a constant level.
The recommended temperature range for delivery of safe hot water where a TMV is installed is 38°-44° (as dead legs of stagnant water can still be present in the system).
To prevent the growth of legionella bacteria, water should be stored below 20° or above 60°. As TMVs allow for high temperature water storage, the risk of bacterial growth is reduced but not eliminated.
In order to store water at temperatures that will thermally disinfect the water system, TMVs must be fitted at outlets. In addition, in healthcare settings, they must adhere to the strict testing regime of the TMV3 / NHS D08 regulatory standard.
It is highly recommended that once installed TMVs are checked
and maintained regularly (once a year) to ensure they are still providing the required and intended scald protection.
Slow moving water in a water system can create prime points of risk for the growth of bacteria such as Legionella. Standard expansion vessels can be susceptible to being such a point of risk, particularly when systems are left unused for long periods or pressure remains constant over time.
Flow through expansion vessels, when used with a flowjet valve, are designed to keep potable water moving through a system in order to prevent any stagnation or contamination. The innovative flowjet design encourages flushing through the vessel, greatly reducing the opportunity for clusters to form.
In a closed hot water circuit, the water cannot be compressed so any increase in volume, created by an increase in temperature, must be accommodated by an expansion vessel. When water is cold, the precharge pressure forces the bladder to collapse until the pump is started when the bladder starts to inflate. As the temperature in the system increases, with the associated increase in pressure and volume, the expanded water enters the bladder creating additional volume and lowering the pressure. When the temperature decreases, the pre-charge pressure forces the water from the bladder and back into the main water circuit.
A thermostatic balancing valve, or thermostatic regulator, is intended to be installed on the return pipe of each re-circulation circuit. It encourages flow to automatically maintain the specified water temperature.
Through design, a thermal balancing valve allows a greater flow below its set point and restricts flow when the water temperature rises to the set point.
By doing this, clusters of cold water are prevented from being formed throughout the system. Additionally, the valves incorporate a bypass which can be opened and allows for a higher flow rate and temperature (usually around 70°C) to move through the system for disinfection, thus removing and killing legionella bacteria.
Finding components that make water management and control of legionella bacteria much easier can be difficult. It is important for components to be selected on their quality and innovation in design, and their compliance, to ensure reliability in their performance.
It makes sense to keep water stored and distributed above
Water is a heating system’s cheapest component. Keep it in prime condition and the installation could run smoothly for years, says Steve Simmonds
A water quality is a good first step in solving problems with a heating system
It indicates whether the water is acidic, neutral, or alkaline. A pH of 7 means the water is neutral, below 7 it is acidic, above 7 means it is alkaline.
The effects of a certain pH value essentially depend on the material used. For example, ferrous materials, such as in pipework and radiators, tend to corrode at pH values below 8. In contrast, these materials feel much more comfortable at values of 9, 10, or even above, and the risk of corrosion decreases.
Aluminium materials do not like pH values above 9. However, many manufacturers now use alloys that can tolerate 9.5, but from then on there is a real risk of corrosion. For copper, it slowly becomes uncomfortable at pH values above 10.
Water might be the cheapest component in a heating system, but it is also the most important, and maintaining it in prime condition should be of paramount concern for anyone involved in facilities management or system design. Too often, dosing it with chemicals is seen as the answer, but this is usually just a temporary fix and not really a fix at all.
Many of the issues impacting on a heating system’s performance can be traced to its ‘lifeblood’, the system fluid. A proper examination can reveal whether the problem lies in the water itself, such as dissolved gasses or magnetite, or that the cause lies elsewhere, such as poor hydronic balancing.
Of course, the best solution is not to let it happen in the first place. Thankfully, the industry is increasingly recognising the benefits of installing deaeration, dirt separation, degassing (including powerful vacuum degassing solutions), and pressurisation equipment.
When correctly specified, properly set up and regularly maintained, this
will avoid the difficulties associated with air and dirt particles that can lead to problems such as corrosion, erosion, and bacterial contamination, to name but a few.
It should be remembered that the quality of the water is determined during the design of the system. Unfortunately, on many systems, a lot of attention is given to expensive components during the design, but often it’s forgotten that the water quality is a determining factor for the final output and lifetime of the installation.
Of course, not all systems are new. There are thousands of systems with ‘heritage issues’, where the technology has become outdated,
Corrosion and scaling can have a serious impact on wet heating systems
or the equipment is ageing and it’s beginning to show. Typical indicators include problems such as boiler kettling, noisy pipework, cavitation resulting in poor circulation, pump inefficiency, cold spots in radiators and leaking AAVs.
When looking to resolve these issues, the best course of action is to start with having a water quality test carried out. Testing can range from a basic sampling and laboratory analysis with initial feedback, to a full interrogation and in-depth 30-section report with specific recommendations. Water quality tests, such as those offered by Spirotech, benchmark against the recommended levels of pH, conductivity, water hardness, and if there is any protector present. The results from these will help in putting a plan together to tackle the two main issues of corrosion and scaling.
Corrosion and scaling can have a serious impact on wet heating systems, leading to higher running costs, more downtime for maintenance, or in more extreme circumstances, component failure. As such, it’s key to identify whether the system is creating an environment for these processes to occur during a water quality test.
The first indicator that corrosion or scaling could occur is the pH value, which is a very basic water parameter.
Meanwhile, water hardness varies across the country, with higher levels of scaling occurring in hard water areas. Scaling is a by-product of the presence of hardness components such as magnesium and calcium, which are deposited as the temperature increases, affecting the highest temperature areas such as heat exchangers the most.
This has a direct impact on boiler efficiency and the problem is proportional to the volume of the system, so larger systems are more greatly affected. To prevent scaling on commercial systems over 600kW, the European standard VDI 2035 recommends the removal of all hardness formers to eliminate limescale deposits through demineralisation.
Whichever method is used to achieve this, the conductivity of the water is reduced. As demineralisation can also remove chlorides, this method also helps reduce corrosion.
Depending on the results of the water test, recommendations could range from a mechanical solution, such as the fitting or replacement of a pressurisation unit, vacuum degasser (for the elimination of microbubbles and dissolved gases) or a dirt separator, to a chemical ‘dosing’ solution or a demineralisation solution.
Another good reason for carrying out a water quality test is that many HVAC manufacturers will only offer a warranty if the system water meets certain standards.
In the UK the standard is BG 29/2020, as promoted by BSRIA (the Building Services Research and Information Association). Ignoring these guidelines is likely to increase the system’s dependence on continuous dosing; but this would mean the symptom was being treated as opposed to the cause. ■
HOVAL’S new Belaria fit air/water heat pumps have been designed for systems with high outputs and a high proportion of renewable energies. Belaria fit delivers efficient heating, cooling and domestic hot water production at the same time and can be used on its own or as part of a hybrid system.
Up to 16 Belaria fit units can be combined in a cascade configuration, enabling outputs into the megawatt range. Belaria fit is also well suited to use in a hybrid configuration, such as alongside a gas condensing boiler for use at peak demand.
At the heart of the design is advanced, modulating inverter technology
that enables continuous adjustment from 40-100 per cent of load, ensuring optimum energy efficiency at all times.
Further efficiencies are achieved through the use of R32 refrigerant, which has a high volumetric refrigerating capacity. The result is high Seasonal Coefficient of Performance/Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio
(SCOP/SEER) for heating and cooling. Consequently, systems with Belaria fit are considered sustainable and are eligible for subsidies. As a standalone (monovalent) system, Belaria fit can provide outputs up to 1.4MW, and up to 4MW in a hybrid system – depending on the required proportion of renewable energy. www.hoval.co.uk
BAXI is preparing for the first real-life trials of pure hydrogen-operated boilers for commercial applications. This is an important next step in the energy transition agenda and follows successful trials of 100 per cent hydrogen boilers for residential use at the Hydrogen Homes in Low Thornley
The pure hydrogen boilers will enable commercial users, such as businesses and public sector bodies, to tap into the potential of hydrogen, whether used on their own or in a multivalent configuration with a heat pump.
“We’re playing our part in the energy transition and that includes in commercial buildings,” said Karen Boswell, managing director at Baxi UK & Ireland. “Green hydrogen is one way to help larger buildings decarbonise because it can store renewable power over long periods of time and help avoid heavy peak loads on the electricity grid. We’re currently working to make our full range of commercial boilers 100 per cent
hydrogen ready.”
Following extensive testing of the hydrogen-powered technology at the company’s R&D Centre, Baxi is preparing prototypes for real-life demonstrations in the UK and Europe, which could be live by the end of the year. www.baxi.co.uk
Rachel Morris looks how smart lighting can help companies optimise space and energy use in the face of a changing work landscape, to achieve cost and environmental savings
does not require major infrastructure changes and causes minimal disruption, as there is no hub or wiring to be fitted and modern LED lamps are compatible with all the main voltage systems.
on the dashboard, providing insights into how much energy is consumed per area on an hourly, daily, monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. By combining this information with other data such as presence detection, shift patterns and work activity rosters, it is possible to establish how lighting energy use can be further reduced or optimised by adapting lighting schedules to fit operational needs.
It can provide a clear view of lighting-based energy consumption data across one office or an entire portfolio of offices. Building managers can examine the data to compare sites, benchmark usage and identify opportunities to reduce energy use and, therefore costs.
permissions and access rights to different employees for various parts of the building.
The use of low energy LEDs with smart sensors takes energy conservation to a whole new level - the Carbon Trust estimates that automatic sensors alone can cut electricity use by up to 40 per cent.
Daylight harvesting employs smart sensors which measure the amount of natural light available and supply just enough electrical light to obtain the required uniform illuminance in a space.
The levels of artificial light provided will vary greatly between a modern open plan offices with large windows, where LEDs can be dimmed, and smaller rooms where natural lighting is reduced.
Motion sensors are programmed to detect when somebody enters a room, triggering the luminaires to provide light as long as the room is in use. The minute the person (or people) leaves the room, the lights automatically switch off. This intelligent use of light is sustainable as well as cost-efficient.
The extended period of lockdown has created a seismic shift in working habits, with the ONS reporting that 84 per cent of people who worked from home during the Covid pandemic want to continue a hybrid working pattern.
The reduced and inconsistent use of workspace this can create is a challenge many employers will have to navigate, particularly if the UK follows the Netherlands’ radical lead and makes working from home a legal right.
Lighting accounts for almost 40 per cent of all energy used in commercial buildings in the UK, and with energy prices showing no sign of returning to normal in the foreseeable future, paying hugely inflated bills on offices frequently operating below capacity will place another burden on those already negotiating a tight bottom line.
For companies wishing to seek swift and quantifiable savings, ‘smart occupancy’ lighting can present very real opportunities to reduce energy use.
Installing a cloud-hosted smart lighting system, even on a large scale,
The key with lighting for smart occupancy is to provide light only when and where it is needed. It removes the onus on individuals to control lighting and enables companies to create lighting schedules which fit around shift patterns, working hours or seasons.
Smart lighting solutions for the commercial space now come with dashboard controls which allow building managers to accurately measure energy usage in real time and optimise office lighting performance.
Energy data is measured at each connected light point and visualised
A smart lighting system can achieve energy savings in a number of ways. LEDs turn roughly 70 per cent of their energy into light. In a domestic setting, the Energy Saving Trust has calculated that replacing bulbs with low energy LEDs would save around £40 a year on electricity bills, so it is easy to imagine the potential savings if that is scaled up to a commercial or industrial environment.
Connected LED luminaires throughout the building can be controlled remotely by a software which allows the user to drill down to a single light point, even granting
For larger buildings, corridor function offers extreme flexibility for thoroughfares which are vital to providing safe and well-lit connections between departments, and are of particular value during winter months or for workplaces operating night shifts.
Lights along the length of a corridor can be programmed to be dimmed or switched off when nobody is detected in the space, but will instantly provide illumination throughout its length when a person enters one end of the corridor, for the duration of their transit.
An automated lighting control solution, used with RGB and tuneable white LED lights which offer millions of different colour settings, can be programmed to recreate the natural light patterns which are known to support our circadian rhythm, or ‘body clock’, which is vital to health and wellbeing.
Luminaires can be set to emit specific combinations of brightness, intensity and colour settings to recreate the natural lighting patterns that promote energy and a positive mood.
The creation of workplaces that promote wellbeing and productivity makes a smart lighting solution well worth investigating, but never more so than when it can also make a significant continuation to minimising energy costs.
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stations/gateways/access points) to be meticulously deployed and installed in pre-selected locations before street lighting controllers and IoT devices can be installed.
This adds increased complexity and costs in terms of stocking, project management, installation and ongoing operation and maintenance of the privately managed networks. In addition, these networks operate in unlicensed spectrum, which inevitably brings problems with interference, bandwidth, and signal disruption, which can mean lost data and disruption in service. Protecting against this and preventing loss of signal all add further costs to the network hardware and loss of reputation, along with the cost of trying to resolve these issues.
Mark Cooper examines how connected control of street lighting can lead to dramatically lower costs and reduced carbon emissions for local authorities
their asset portfolio, enabling energy savings, increased safety and reduced maintenance costs.
The use of cellular and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in intelligent street lighting delivers flexibility and interoperability, resulting in significant cost and energy savings, increasingly making it the go-to choice for a more sustainable connected lighting solution.
However, there is a wide range of options when deciding which wireless IoT technologies to deploy, with not all being suitable for every scenario. In addition, factors ranging from regulatory (planning and deployment logistics) to ensuring an area’s aesthetic is maintained and, of increasing importance, power consumption, must be considered.
Each solution has different capabilities and strengths, making them better suited for certain scenarios and applications. However, increasingly the most important of these are longevity, ongoing accessible support, and power consumption – especially in light of the recent global surge in energy costs.
LED lighting technology’s advantages are well documented, significantly improving both power consumption and night-time visibility.
Cellular nodes connected to central management systems (CMS) build on these benefits, allowing precise control of lighting outputs through remote ‘dimming and trimming’ techniques, which enable significant energy (and therefore cost) savings. They can also automatically provide reporting on faults, further saving monitoring and maintenance costs.
When paired with additional sensors, the cellular node can provide dynamic lighting, automatically adjusting depending on pedestrian footfall or road traffic. This can ensure adequate light levels during peak periods, offering a sense of security while minimising wastage during quieter periods.
Connected CMS platforms use street lighting infrastructure to communicate data via nodes attached to the luminaire, allowing control of a portfolio of city and highways assets. The vast array of data that can be captured and reported means customers can make intelligent decisions about how they manage
For example, Urban Control and its parent company, DW Windsor, recently worked with Surrey County Council to provide more efficient street lighting. Together, they upgraded 89,000 streetlights to energy-efficient LEDs, delivering expected energy reductions of around 60 per cent – saving more than 7,500 tonnes of carbon emissions each year. Urban Control provided the central management system (CMS), while DW Windsor was responsible for the lighting upgrade.
The most important and successful standards we have seen to date are the 3GPP family of cellular IoT technologies – ‘Long-Term Evolution for Machines’ (LTE-M) and ‘Narrowband-Internet of Things’ (NB-IoT), deployed in the licensed spectrum and managed by mobile operators. These have been designed to support IoT applications that are low cost and use low data rates. Devices boast long battery lives that can operate in remote and hard-toreach locations.
But why is this technology having such a disruptive impact on IoT and connected street lighting? Traditionally low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) have required extensive network planning and additional hardware (base
Cellular IoT, however, exists in licensed spectrum with no such problems, as these frequency bands are protected and enforced by the UK government via the regulator Ofcom. Cellular IoT devices are also as close to ‘plug-and-play’ as we can get, with automatic location, LED lantern and driver information upload and commissioning all carried out within minutes of powering up the unit.
It’s clear that interoperability and scalability are critical; however, we also need to bear in mind that when a product or system must adapt its solution to a proprietary system, we will be speaking about compatibility and not about interoperability.
One major factor present in all wireless technologies that have successfully transitioned from pilot to the mainstream is that they are based on standards-based technologies rather than closed proprietary ones. It’s been clear for some time that the vendors promoting proprietary technologies have struggled to gain traction, with Harvard Technology and Sigfox entering administration in the last few years and the much-hyped LoRaWAN now facing its own public network challenges.
Interoperability is a crucial topic in today’s IoT world. Unfortunately, proprietary solutions frequently lead to vendor lock-in, complicated and expensive integration with others, poor or non-existent updates and, eventually, obsolescence.
With an increasingly urbanised population and more than 80 per cent of global GDP generated in cities, there is a demand for data-driven solutions that can address key urban challenges at scale. IoT-connected LED lighting controls offer a scalable, affordable, and interoperable solution that helps lower energy usage and will stand the test of time.
Having witnessed the benefits of the ZUMTOBEL TECTON continuous row lighting system at its European sites, Bleckmann, an expert in supply chain management solutions for fashion and lifestyle brands, turned to the lighting company for a turnkey lighting solution for its BREEAM rated UK-based operations in Suffolk and Leicestershire.
Located within one hour of Felixstowe, Suffolk, the new fulfilment facility
SIGNIFY has been appointed by Frasers Group to design and supply the lighting for all 69 Everlast Gyms across the UK. The lighting upgrade is part of the Fraser Group’s ‘elevation strategy’ to develop a unique model within the UK fitness industry and offer an unparalleled class and gym experience for Everlast members and visitors which is both inclusive and immersive.
In addition, designing the gyms with LED lighting dramatically cuts the energy consumption by about 80 per cent, when compared to the traditional technologies that were deployed earlier. Added controls will help manage and reduce energy consumption by creating and managing uniform light schedules for all 69 gyms from a single dashboard, reducing operational costs, ensuring compliance, and efficiently planning maintenance.
Everlast gyms at Denton, Shirebrook and Preston have already been upgraded and offer members a variety of different environments – or ‘innovative zones’ – to train in, creating unique gym experiences. Contemporary luminaries from the Modular range
aligns with Bleckmann’s commitment to running its business sustainably and responsibly. The roof’s solar panels supply green electricity to the site, with free electric vehicle charging. Additionally, 400 trees and 650 shrubs have been planted around the area.
Furthermore, the new BREEAM Excellent Magna Park in LutterworthBleckmann’s fifth site in the UK, has a floor area of 205,000 square feet and a
clear height of fifteen metres, resulting in a floor capacity of 550,000 square feet.
The opening of these new facilities will allow Bleckmann to create up to 500 jobs across both locations, which is expected to grow as the sites develop.
Over the last few months, Zumtobel Lighting has worked with Bleckmann on a quick turnaround lighting installation for both facilities.
An award-winning, versatile, and efficient combination of TECTON C AND B provides three main types of warehouse lighting: open area, rack, and mezzanine.
Its Split-lens technology satisfies each lighting task in the layout with less glare and no adverse effects on the light distribution curve.
The position of the LED is visible, but in contrast to conventional lenses, the light-emitting panel is extended to the entire width, providing excellent uniformity.
The range has an 11-pole current conducting section built into the trunking, providing extreme flexibility to allow specific configurations to meet the needs of each lighting area.
Zumtobel’s RESCLITE PRO emergency system supports the main industrial area lighting. Its innovative lenses fulfil all the requirements of emergency escape lighting in a minimalist design with the highest technical standards.
Commercial landlord CEG has invested £4.5m refurbishing The Haston House office building, renamed Verdant, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. This was to meet the demands for a modern, flexible workspace.
The lighting was a fundamental element of the refurbishment scheme. The lighting solution covers the entire building, from the open-plan office areas to the emergency lighting and backof-house. Appointed by Innes Associates, Sylvania’s brief was to deliver high quality lighting in a cutting-edge design.
Throughout the entrance, coffee shop, and lobby, Mini Continuum provides clean lines of homogenous light. Its trimless construction is seamless, casting no shadows, fostering a vibrant, welcoming, and uplifting environment.
Myriad and Ascent downlights distribute high-quality light in the changing rooms and bathrooms, with TubiXx LED decorative pendants adding a minimalist design feature.
distribute a soft yet functional light that is designed for hospitality venues, public, retail and other large spaces. These lights use minimalist design principles that add to the visual appeal of the space. To compliment this, the Keyline range, from the Philips portfolio, creates chevrons, lines and squares in the ceiling, directing members to the different zones and identifying the individual areas.
As part of the redesign, the Interact connected lighting system, which includes multisite management capability, provides centralised lighting control for all the gyms. Agreed scenes
and schedules ensure a consistent look and feel, as well as providing increased visibility, flexibility, and control of the lights. The cloud-based platform collects data from all light points via a connected lighting infrastructure and is displayed on a centralised dashboard. This enables better comparison, monitoring and management of lighting across multiple locations for improved efficiency
The gyms also feature tailor-made pendant and projector lights which are 3D printed luminaires designed and developed to suit the exact needs of each individual location.
RANA Linear recessed luminaires fill the space with perfectly uniformed light, further enhancing the area. All luminaires are furnished in a sleek black finish to complement the upmarket, luxury hotel feel the office design exudes.
When illuminating the backof-house areas, efficiency and reliability were vital. Resisto waterproof luminaires offer up to 160 lm/W and IP66/65 protection for the bike storage area.
RouteLed, SylSafe Exit, and IP65 Exit ensure all the requirements for emergency lighting are met.
Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems provide two functions: Continuous power conditioning to the IT load, and short-term power to bridge the gap while the emergency generators are coming online following the loss of the utility supply.
With new mandates such as SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) and CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) obliging data centre companies to report their sustainability efforts, a New GHG Abatement Group White Paper is published to help data centre operators work towards the ultimate goal of sustainable green energy storage.
In the context of data centres operating as bidirectional microgrids, two key questions arise. Which battery technologies are most suitable as battery energy storage systems (BESS) and what are their sustainability credentials?
In a newly authored white paper, “Sustainability Considerations for Battery Option Selection in Data Centre Energy Storage Systems,” Clayton Lim, Associate Director at i3 Solutions Group and a contributing member of the GHG Abatement Group, explores the main factors that influence decision-making associated with current battery storage technologies together with important sustainability indices that ought to be considered. Trends in battery technologies are also discussed. For grid interaction, the BESS consists of three main components: ● battery management system; ● energy management system; and ● power conversion system
The data centre sector has traditionally used lead acid batteries with a static UPS system, but that
The
situation is gradually changing. According to a Frost and Sullivan 2021 report, lithium ion batteries will by 2025 account for 38.5 per cent of data centre energy storage. Its growing popularity is reportedly due to its durability and smaller footprint; Li-ion achieves ten times the number of recycles compared with traditional lead acid batteries, which although are cheaper to acquire need more frequent replacement and are both bulkier and heavier.
However, in sustainability terms for the data centre sector, it is not a straight fight between Li-ion and lead acid. There are challenges with the use of lithium throughout its lifecycle, from its extraction which utilises high volumes of water to recycling constraints. Lead acid batteries, by comparison, benefit from a longestablished recycling supply chain which can recover more than 98 per
cent of components.
There are alternative battery technologies that should be considered for use in the data centre.
The new white paper Sustainability Considerations for Battery Option Selection in Data Centre Energy Storage Systems examines the following battery types:
● Lead-acid
● Sodium-sulphur (NaS)
● Sodium-nickel-chloride (NaNiCl)
● Nickel-cadmium (NiCd)
● Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRFB)
● Zinc Bromine Flow Battery (ZBFB)
● Lithium-ion (Li-ion)
Emerging battery types which logically could be considered viable alternatives to lithium ion include technologies such as the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRFB), metal-air battery and sodium-sulphur battery.
The white paper states: “Liquidmetal batteries appear to be a potential gamechanger in the various UPS types given its superiority in upfront system cost, operating cost, cycle life, response time, footprint and
Battery storage systems form part of a green energy storage system
geographical dependency.”
Mandates such as SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting), CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) and EED (Energy Efficiency Directive) will oblige data centre companies to report their sustainability efforts, this will also cover battery choices.
Significant factors include energy density which refers to the amount of energy that is available for storage in certain areas, volume, or mass. This in conjunction with power density and the right battery type determines the most suitable battery technology for optimal system selection.
The focus of the new white paper is on the sustainability characteristics of various chemical batteries for BESS requirements. However, it should be noted that other energy storage options are available which may be or become applicable for data centre power requirements. These include; kinetic flywheels, compressed gas storage, and potentially pumped hydro, tidal current and gravity storage.
The new white paper concludes that many interacting factors should be considered when selecting the appropriate UPS BESS. These include the type of application, sustainability performance indicators, investment and revenue return opportunities, technical performance, and location factors. Critically, the environmental impacts of a battery technology must be taken into consideration from a whole life point of view. “Sustainability Considerations for Battery Option Selection in Energy Storage Systems” is freely available for download from www.i3solutions.com
For data centres it's not a straight fight between Li-ion and lead acid
The change of planning laws two years ago allowed developers of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) above the 50MW threshold to apply for consent from local planning authorities instead of having to seek a development consent order (DCO) through the national infrastructure regime. This has made the process of acquiring planning permissions easier and has eventually resulted in a rise in the number and capacity of BESS projects.
RenewableUK’s EnergyPlus report showed that there is 1.6GW of operational battery storage capacity in the UK, 45 per cent more than last year. BESS projects in the pipeline as of April were 32.1GW compared to 16.1GW last year.
At Wilson Power Solutions, we have seen a significant rise in demand for special designed
transformers from utility-scale BESS projects all over the country. These projects often have multiple transformers on site connecting one transformer to each battery pack to improve resilience. The transformers are often connected to the local DNO grid through a power transformer. One of the projects we supplied transformers for is a 98MW BESS project in Yorkshire that was constructed in two phases. We supplied the site with 40x 2.8MVA Tier 2 complaint distribution transformers with a 33kV/480V voltage ratio and all the required ancillaries.
Utility-scale BESS are essential to support the transition toward lower carbon electricity produced from renewable energy sources. BESS can store electricity when there is a surplus and release it when the wind
is not blowing or the sun is not shining but most importantly, it can play a major role in balancing the grid. All the energy that is being imported from or exported to the grid runs through transformers. Wilson Power
Solutions have created a range of Large Distribution Transformers that are custom designed and built to fit different BESS project specifications.
• www.wilsonpowersolutions.co.uk
has announced plans to convert a decommissioned Lincolnshire gas-fired power station into a battery storage facility capable of supplying the equivalent of a full day’s energy consumption for 11,000 households.
Working in partnership with GE, the company has started construction on a 50MW /100MWh battery storage project at Brigg, which will provide energy storage for the 43 onshore wind farms across Lincolnshire, maximising the potential of every megawatt of green electricity and providing vital resilience for the grid.
Storing renewable energy in this way makes it possible to better control the peaks and troughs associated with renewable energy generation – charging the batteries when electricity demand is low and discharging when demand peaks.
The battery installed at Brigg represents the largest investment in storage capacity Centrica has made to date. It will have the capacity to store 100MWh of electric energy, equivalent
to a full day’s energy consumption for around 15 per cent of the homes in north Lincolnshire.
The battery storage system, supplied by GE, will provide grid support and energy services that will not only provide stabililty to the grid when there are power disruptions but also ensure renewable energy is utilised optimally, which should free capacity to allow more new renewable generation on the network.
Greg McKenna, managing director of Centrica Business Solutions, said: “Investing in low-carbon energy assets that boost the UK’s ability to store more renewable energy is key to getting to
Net Zero. Lincolnshire has 242MW of onshore wind power capacity, but when supply outstrips demand some of those green electrons will go to waste if not stored. Working with GE we’ll store green energy produced locally and use it as efficiently as possible.
Brigg battery storage is set to be fully operational in late 2023 with plans to run the site for 25 years. The solution implemented will be a 2-hour duration system with GE’s flexible duration architecture that will allow Centrica to modify the duration of the system in response to future grid needs and market opportunities.
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As a sustainable source of critical raw materials, recycling of lithiumion batteries will play a key role in the future – especially the recycling of batteries that power electric cars.
Today’s recycling processes fail to recover every type of metal, with some of the lithium and all of the graphite going to waste.
A new approach could change that. In a project called RecycleMat, the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research BadenWürttemberg (ZSW) in Germany developed a method to recover and reprocess active materials extracted from used lithium-ion batteries for direct use in new batteries. It involves fairly simply chemical processes and the material powders reactivated via this new method exhibit 95 percent of their original capacity. This holds true for both the metal oxides in batteries’ positive electrodes and, surprisingly, also for the graphite in negative electrodes. ZSW researchers have already
reused and taken electrochemical measurements of these recycled materials in new battery cells.
“Spent battery electrodes with today’s widely used cathode structure of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides and a graphite anode can be reactivated with this new recycling process, and then reused directly in new cells,” said project leader Dr Marilena Mancini.
ZSW’s researchers had to develop new approaches and processes to this end, particularly for recycling graphite from the battery’s negative terminal. Graphite is usually incinerated rather than recycled. The solution to this problem was a sophisticated heat treatment process that removes impurities from the particles’ surfaces and restores the crystalline material structure. Graphite powder treated in this way retains 95 percent of the original material’s specific energy content and can be used directly in new batteries.
The UK’s leading shelving and storage experts, Rapid Racking, based in Gloucestershire, has partnered with intralogistics expert JUNGHEINRICH to further support their sustainability goals.
The company has entered into a long-term partnership with Jungheinrich to introduce a 21-strong all-electric fleet this year. In addition, the need to reduce financial pressure and maximise output within the warehouse meant that Lithium-ion was the most viable solution for Rapid Racking’s needs.
Whenever opportunity charging was not feasible, Jungheinrich provided a smart system which allowed for maximum uptime while minimising charging times. Together, lithium-ion batteries and opportunity charging enable continuous operation of the fleet 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Additionally, the transition to Lithium-Ion immediately reduced levels of air pollution and noise within the indoor spaces providing a more pleasant and efficient working environment. As a result of reducing manual handling and eliminating gas cylinder changes, the Rapid Racking team was able to meet high demand more quickly and efficiently.
Vincent Smit, operations manager at Rapid Racking, said: “By switching to Jungheinrich’s Lithium-ion technology, we now have a fully electric fleet operating throughout our three warehouses. This has enabled us to move much closer to our sustainability targets, which was a big factor in making this transition.
On an operational level, the Rapid Racking warehouse team have found Jungheinrich’s solutions more stable and userfriendly which optimises the team’s picking efficiency.” ■
Batteries provide power for allelectric fleet
With energy prices continuing to soar, now is the time for businesses to ‘invest smart’ in decarbonisation as a route to ensuring energy resilience, says Darren Riva
This year has seen a perfect storm for energy prices, with the pressures on business reaching new heights. Indeed, research from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) highlighted the extent to which businesses had become increasingly concerned about soaring energy costs, with 69 per cent of businesses expecting energy costs to increase over the next quarter - with almost a third anticipating rises in excess of 30 per cent.
The government has sought to help businesses weather the storm, most recently announcing its Energy Bill Relief Scheme, in order to protect them from rising energy costs for the next six months.
While the announcement has been welcomed with cautious optimism, the overarching sentiment is that the scheme only offers a temporary fix. Once the initial six-month period ends, the onus will be on all but the most vulnerable to protect themselves against energy prices, with demand reduction and investment in energy efficiency touted as the most likely solutions to combat future increases.
Energy prices aren’t the only challenge businesses have had to face. According to the Office for National Statistics, firms account for around 18 per cent of UK gas emissions and represent a critical piece of the UK’s net-zero puzzle. Therefore, the need for them to accelerate decarbonisation and to contribute towards both domestic and global climate reduction targets has also increased.
With this in mind, the question on many business leaders’ minds
is how can they steer themselves through these challenges and protect themselves from energy price volatility, whilst also boosting their sustainability credentials?
Delivering energy resilience and decarbonisation requires investment in low carbon systems and cleaner technologies. However, financial hurdles remain one of the biggest barriers to positive change and more often than not, many businesses will be put off taking the necessary steps that will improve their energy resilience due to a lack of access to investment funds.
The latest findings from the British Chambers of Commerce Quarterly Economic Survey (QES) for Q2 2022 shines a spotlight on the real
specialist guidance and support is essential.
As a specialist energy solutions financier, our entire focus is on supporting manufacturers to act on decarbonisation and energy resilience and security by providing bespoke energy finance, underpinned with deep domain expertise and knowledge. Through a host of funding options, we have helped companies in numerous sectors to accelerate their path to decarbonisation, reduce their energy bills, and reduce their reliance on the gird.
Our approach means we can encompass all aspects of a project, often with zero up-front capital
investment required, allowing us to fund up to 100 per cent of the total cost of the project. Crucially, we deliver payment schemes that can be aligned to an organisation’s energy strategy.
This means that payments are calibrated according to projected energy savings, future budgets, government initiatives and company cash-flow. We can incorporate the cost of ongoing service and maintenance needs once a project reaches the operational phase to deliver a fixed cost solution.
It is vital to remember that not every change has to be complex or costly. We can provide finance solutions that support all types of energy resilience and decarbonisation measures -
This is now an ideal moment for manufacturers to achieve true energy resilience
