Energy performance analysis and assessment of retrofit renewable energy technology for a university building

The climate change phenomenon is an ever-growing emergency driven by the emission of harmful anthropogenic gases from fossil fuel consumption. Its potential consequences, such as extreme weather and irreversible environmental impacts, have made it a focal point for political acts, targets, and regulations on a national and global scale. The operation of commercial buildings, in addition to the generation of the energy to which they consume, are identified as some of the highest contributing areas to these emissions. For university buildings, it is imperative that energy consumption is understood and addressed in order to protect the environment, reduce operational costs, meet government grant allocations, and continue to offer educational services to their students. This paper conducts an energy performance analysis of the Henry Cotton Building, part of the Liverpool John Moores University. The current energy consumption data is investigated using the techniques of energy benchmarking, Cumulative Sum of Differences and fabric assessment. The results indicated that both electricity and gas consumption sit within average recommended levels for similar buildings and could both be improved towards ‘good’ industry practice. Predicted consumptions were found to be similar to actual, highlighting no significant performance issues but highlighing no improvement. The fabric conditions were found to deviate significantly from modern industry standards. The study concludes with a review of potential renewable energy technology alternatives, to improve energy sustainability in the building by generation substitution. The analytic hierarchy process was utilised to compare the various solutions against each other and multiple criteria that impact successful implementation. The results identified solar as the most viable (score 78.5), followed by wind (score 66), geothermal (score 60) and biomass (score 50.5)

Analysis of Hydrogen Production Methods Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process

The ever-growing evidence of climate emergency continues to drive the need for innovative solutions to reduce the release of anthropogenic harmful gases. Continuing to heavily rely on energy originating from fossil fuels remains non-sustainable owing to their limited, exhausting supplies, dependence on politically insecure sources and adverse environmental impacts. These considerations, coupled with the current desperate need for energy security, have driven research towards finding cleaner alternatives. Hydrogen has the potential to reduce 5Gt of CO2 emissions annually, create 30 million new jobs and power over 400 million cars by 2050. However, for hydrogen to be justified and to be successful in feeding the world's appetite for energy, its full life cycle, including its production methods, is required to be safe, efficient, affordable and environmentally benign. This paper aims to review the status of the potential hydrogen production methods that have strong eligibility within the UK and facilitate the much-required wider discussion around hydrogen by employing a multi-disciplinary approach. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been employed to allow for pairwise comparisons of decision criteria and ranks decision alternatives using expert knowledge. Six hydrogen production methods (Green Electrolysis, SMR, ATR, POX, Anaerobic Digestion and Gasification) were chosen for review against nine parameters to determine which hydrogen production method(s) present most viable for the UK to aid in decarbonising the energy system. Collating performance scores against relevant parameters from industry experts allowed for a non-bias, holistic view of the production methods. Green electrolysis was found to be the better method (score 131) when assessed against all but one parameter, resulting in the method being considered the most viable option for the UK, however, considerations are to be made for electrolyser longevity and cost. SMR scored second most viable option (score 125), however, despite presenting as an effective production method for the UK based on the performance scores, this does not reflect the current deployment or construction rate of SMR with CCS projects in the UK. ATR (score 114) and POX (score 116) carry similar characteristics and subsequently scored similarly in performance scores. Anaerobic digestion (score 104) and gasification (score 101) scored amongst the lowest as their challenge is to scale in order to reach government goals as set out in the Government Hydrogen Strategy

Investigating effective building fabric as a passive cooling technique to combat overheating in UK residential buildings

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that the earth’s temperature is increasing by 1.5°. Research indicates that 9 out of 10 homes within the United Kingdom may experience overheating. The growing concern of overheating within residential homes should be resolved before occupants turn to the use of mechanical means. Passive cooling strategies need to be implemented into residential homes as a contribution to the current aim of the United Kingdom government to reduce carbon emission by 77% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. This research investigates the most appropriate building construction fabric as a passive cooling strategy that can be implemented into residential homes to mitigate the impact of climate change. Computational fluid dynamic simulation of different building fabric scenarios of EcoBIM construction, Passivhaus construction and Standard construction are performed using EDSL Tas thermal modelling software. The simulations incorporate Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineering (CIBSE) weather data files for Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, and London for 2020s, 2050s and 2080s climatic projections. The results from this investigation show that the standard construction overall did present the most effective solution against the number of hours experiencing overheating. The research provides evidence to suggest that the current 2021 Building Regulations in place are not at risk of experiencing overheating in Manchester, Belfast, and Glasgow across the 2020, 2050 and 2080 simulations, as well as for the 2020 and 2050 London simulation. This proposes that within these locations the current 2021 Building Regulations regarding the U values in document Part-L shall be deemed as having an acceptable tolerance to overheating, and further adaptations are not necessary, as there is no concern regarding the encountering of overheating within these regions and weather periods. Furthermore, the utilization of the EcoBIM construction on average did cause significant increased risk of overheating. The only exception to this was the 2080 simulation for London in which the EcoBIM construction obtained 71.10% less overheating compared to the Standard construction. The outcome of this research suggests that London is at extreme risk of enduring overheating by 2080, as all the constructions during this simulation process were perceived as exceeding the CIBSE TM59 requirement

The Success of the Construction Industry's Adoption of the Carbon Assessment Strategy PAS2050

PAS2050 was introduced in order to help combat the extremely high levels of emissions that the construction industry emits, as well as the large volume of natural resources they use, through the life cycle of a project. It was developed to create a consistent method of assessing the life cycle of Greenhouse gases as well as a method to increase understanding of where they arise from within a supply chain. This is essential in today's world as without change, the climate will continue to rise in temperature and contribute negatively to the already dramatic effects of climate change that have already been seen. By implementing PAS2050 the industry aims to allow stakeholders to realise the impacts and encourage movement towards a more sustainable future. This research aims to determine how well the construction industry has adopted the carbon assessment strategy covered by PAS2050 through informed opinions, data and case studies. Using journals and research, alongside a questionnaire which will be distributed to individuals within the industry, an informed decision will be made to determine how well the construction industry has adopted PAS2050. The results found that the industry is having difficulty in adapting to the change at all levels and scopes. The findings of this research show that the industry has only touched the surface and although the larger organisations are leading the charge, enough is not being done by smaller organisations and the supply chain

Mitigating the impact of climate change on UK buildings through zero energy strategies

It is currently established that one of the paramount concerns in the built environment is the energy efficiency of new and existing UK dwellings, respective to the unfavourable impacts posed to climate change. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the United Kingdom have reported that the UK's highest recording temperatures have transpired in the years since 2002. With over 90% of England homes currently in use of high carbon systems for space heating and domestic hot water. Contributing to increased atmospheric carbon emissions in the dependency on fossil fuel burning; alluding to human-produced atmospheric temperature increase. To help tackle these issues in the residential sector, the capacity of zero-energy technologies has been introduced. Zero-energy implementation has potential to revolutionise the power system, with on-site power generation at the forefront of this. This paper will explore the influence of zero-energy implementation on two UK residential dwellings of disparate locations, using Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IESVE) by focusing on renewable on-site micro-generation systems. The ASHRAE climate zones of Edinburgh and London Gatwick has been selected to examine the performance of the building over varied regional climates of disparate locations. The selected design variables were finally implemented in combination for building simulation in IESVE and compared with a basic model dwelling. The processed simulation results showed a reduction in the buildings energy consumption of 43.4538MWh (71%) for Edinburgh and 33.9929MWh (64%) for London respective to the baseline model. The greatest savings in mitigation of UK climate change can be evaluated in relation to reduction of carbon emissions, which were 7880kgCO2 (46%) and 5423kgCO2 (36%) respectively

RSM (Response Surface Methodology) Modelling of Inter-Electrodes Spacing Effects on Phosphate Removal

RSM modelling has been applied in this study to understand the effects of inter-electrodes on the performance of the electrochemical reactors in the removal of pollutants. RSM has been selected because it has the ability to predict the effects of more than one parameter on the targeted variable. Thus, the RSM has been used in this article to model the effects of inter-electrodes spaces (IES) (4 to 10 mm) and treatment time (TT) (5 – 55 min) on the ability of the electrocoagulation (EC) cells to remove phosphate from water. The results showed the best removal of phosphate was 92.5% at I-ES of 4 mm and TT of 50 min. High agreement was noticed between experimental and predicted removals (R 2 = 0.984)

Evaluation of Embodied Carbon Emissions in UK Supermarket Constructions: A Study on Steel, Brick, and Timber Frameworks with Consideration of End-of-Life Processes

Buildings and the construction sector as a whole are among the chief emitters of carbon, and the structural system of a building contributes substantially to its embodied carbon emissions. Whereas extensive studies exist into carbon missions, a detailed evaluation of real multipart building systems in brick, steel, and timber (glulam) substitutes is lacking. This paper employs whole-life-embedded carbon as a sustainability metric to compare a current UK supermarket building system of steel, brick, and timber. Four construction systems by the supermarket, referred to as CS1, CS2, CS3, and CS4, are used in the investigation. Comparisons are also made between two end-of-life treatment methods (recycle and landfill) along with the benefits that can be realised in future construction projects. The outcome from the comparative assessment reveals that there are minor variations in the embodied carbon of building systems used by the supermarket. CS4, while currently presenting marginal gains (approximately 148,960.68 kgCO2eq.) compared to CS1, loses its advantages when recycled contents for future construction projects are considered. The result indicates that CS4 generates about 18% less carbon emission reduction potential than CS1, whilst CS3 generates approximately 16% less than CS1. The findings of this article can enhance the knowledge of embodied carbon estimation and reduction capabilities of timber, steel, and brick buildings. Also, the detailed method for quantifying embodied carbon used in this article can be adopted in similar projects around the world

Using SF and CKD as cement replacement materials for producing cement mortar

When considering binding materials, cement mortar is thought to be one of the most conventional and effective materials. The cement mortar is mainly containing cement, sand (fine and rough), and water. In fact, there are many environmental and economical limitations to the usage of raw materials in mortar blends. For considering these limitations, many researchers studied the ability to incorporate waste-materials to fully or partially replace conventional raw materials. In this research, compressive strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) will be studied by incorporating (SF) and (CKD) of mortar specimens and study the effect after 7,14, and 28 days. The obtained results from the collected samples (M1, M2, and M3) were compared with the reference mortar samples that contain ordinary Portland cement (OPC) only. The collected results showed that samples with CKD and SF have less compressive strength than ones with OPC with 28 days of curing. In addition, with higher CKD content, lower compressive strength was obtained. Samples (M1, M2) have the highest (UPV) values at different curing periods