With performance at its core, the project team has made a commitment to keep the energy model live during post-occupancy, frequently revisiting and plugging the real-life data which is captured daily back into this model to fine tune performance.
Designed into the building from the outset, the project team incorporated almost 400 meters and sensors to measure the environment and energy consumption on a granular level. This approach ensures energy consumption can be closely monitored and logged by the client and its end users. The information is used for a number of purposes:
✔️ The headline energy figures for the building are displayed above the reception desk for all to see. This is aimed to both display the instantaneous building performance but to also encourage positive behaviours.
✔️ Data logged is analysed to ensure the equipment is functioning efficiently and as expected with faults being able to be found very quickly.
✔️Captured data is utilised to enhance the building performance over time. This has an advantage over the commonly held seasonal commissioning as the data is logged so frequently and monitored remotely it can analyse the very extremes of building performance without requiring an engineer in attendance.
✔️ Data is utilised to compare against modelled data and inform future builds.
✔️ Data can inform the building management to inform building user behaviours to further drive down energy consumption.
As an energy positive building, the Council will realise an accelerated payback period compared to a standard net-zero building. At RIBA Stage 3, this was predicted to be 7.8 years, but given the rise in energy prices, this estimate will have reduced.
A longer-term driver for this project is to deliver the excess energy to the neighbouring Hydrogen Centre to produce clean hydrogen as a by-product of this development and power local authority vehicles.
Ultimately, it is estimated that the project will reach carbon parity with its embodied carbon figure in approximately 36 years, sequestering approximately 864 tonnes of CO2 over the building lifecycle.
