Design Support for Financial Energy Efficiency Incentives in Operation
Peter James, Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement (HEEPI)
Many aspects of the design intent that are intended to achieve good energy and resource efficiency are not actually realised in subsequent laboratory operation. One reason for this is that users have no financial incentive to make use of the design potential. This is now changing through devolved energy budgeting, energy and space charging, shared savings and other measures and it is important that design decisions support this. Sub-metering (e.g., of whole floors, groups of rooms, single rooms with much energy-intensive equipment) can be more useful than point sources alone. A common problem is poor design and installation of distribution boards, with incomplete labelling of feeds and/or sub-metering and too little clearance to allow installation of fixed or temporary sub-meters after handover. Ensuring that fume cupboard controls can be linked into building information management systems is also vital. At the University of Nottingham, data from 380 cupboards is used to monitor and feedback laboratory performance each month. Together with a supporting awareness campaign, this has reduced energy use by 1.9 million kWh (6,483 million BTU) and costs by $100,000, a year.
Biography
Peter James is a professor of environmental management at the University of Bradford, and co-director of the Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement (HEEPI) project. HEEPI supports environmental improvement in specialist areas such as buildings, green IT, and laboratories, where it collaborates with Labs21, through benchmarking, events, guidance, tools and other means. Mr. James has been an advisor to the European Commission on Environmental Technology, and ICT and Energy Efficiency. His publications include Driving Eco-Innovation, The Green Bottom Line, and Sustainable Measures.