2016 April

Is the Government Construction Strategy just more of the same?

Is sustainability sustainable?

Where the value lies in going green. 

The Heating and Cooling Strategy is the EU's first initiative aimed at this area

Not only is VRF air-conditioning equipment becoming ever-more efficient at its main task, but the integration of ways to use its reject heat further improve overall energy efficiency. Lee Snook of LG explains how.

While energy efficient products can have an undeniable impact on the performance of a building’s heating system, the way that the system is designed can play an equally important role. Chris Meir of Andrews Water Heaters discusses how separating heating and hot water generation can be the key to greater savings.

Rinnai’s continuous-flow water-heating solutions can work with renewable-energy sources such as solar-thermal and air-source heat pumps. The concept is that the water heater tops up the temperature of stored water heated by renewable energy — but only when required.

Why deliver heating and cooling as separate services when a single heat-pump system can do both — asks Richard Venga of Mitsubishi Electric.

Reznor’s SmartCom intelligent energy-management controller is compatible with radiant-tube, warm-air and many other types of heating system. It is straightforward and easy to use and has a wide range of energy-optimising features.

Lindab’s Solus chilled-beam system has been chosen to deliver energy-efficient climate control for a landmark building in Sweden — the Round House in the Munksjöstaden district. Pairing Solus with renewable-energy sources such as free cooling and ground-source heat pumps can achieve energy savings of up to 45%. The system includes nearly 600 Solus chilled beams and the entire ducting system. Pascal VAV system are being used in areas where the heating load can change very quickly, such as conference rooms.

Air curtains over or beside large doors in warehouses can cut energy loss through open doorways by over 80% — according to Airbloc, which supplies air curtains for such applications. Comfort is also improved. Internal temperatures can drop by 4 to 10 K every time a warehouse door is opened. With an air curtain, the difference is normally just 1 K.

Natural ventilation using Gilberts (Blackpool)’s Mistrale ventilation louvres are helping the £49 million Pontio arts and innovation centre in Bangor achieve high environmental standards. Pontio (Welsh for bridge) aims to link art, science, the university and the local community through its provision of cinema, and design and innovation centre in a single building located between the main university buildings and the city.

SAV’s LoadTracker CHP (combined heat and power) units and Danfoss FlatStation heat-interface units have been specified for the Aylesbury Site 7 development of 162 apartments, part of a phased regeneration of the Aylesbury Estate in the London Borough of Southwark. The apartments will be served from an energy centre, which will house the two LoadTracker XRGi 20 modulating CHP units.

With many specifiers and contractors working on large-scale residential buildings yet to reap the benefits of large-scale heat networks, Pete Mills of Bosch Commercial and Industrial, explains the important role of CIBSE’s code of practice for heat networks to help the effective integration of boiler plant in a district-heating scheme.

Gilberts’ Mistrale natural-ventilation solution has played a key role in Filwood Business Park in Bristol achieving BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ at design stage. The system was able to balance a fresh internal environment with minimal ingress of noise from the busy roads around the site.

A 30% reduction in CO2 emissions and attractive payback on investment are just two attractions of small-scale CHP. Chris Marsland of Ener-G Combined Power Ltd takes up the story.

The many poor operating practices that the National Energy Foundation comes across provide a sound basis for improving the energy efficiency of building-services systems — as Dr Kerry Mashford explains.

The Metropolitan Police Service has awarded the management of two of its critical data centres to Keysource as part of the wider strategic implementation of the force’s technology transformation programme. The Met has identified an efficient IT infrastructure as a key enabler in its One Met transformation programme to deliver its 20:20:20 strategic policy — decrease key crimes by 20%, increase public confidence by 20% and decrease costs by 20%.

Traditionally the way to deal with heat generated by server racks in an IT suite or data centre has been to allow the fans in the blade servers to draw room air through the racks to remove the heat and reject it into the space. The task for the building-services engineer is then to remove that heat from the air to maintain the required conditions. Humidification may also be required.

One of the largest financial institutions in the UK is using 24 Micronics U3000B clamp-on flow meters in a new banking data centre in Leicestershire to measure the flow of a chilled-water/glycol mixture to control water-pump speed in the cooling system and achieve a controlled constant temperature throughout the data halls.

Airbox from Weatherite Air Conditioning is an air-containment solution that provides an energy-efficient addition to airflow management for data centres. It provides an effective way of helping to control airflow in data centres, server rooms and communications rooms.

EcoCooling has developed a range of internal evaporative coolers for data centres that do not want to have plant and equipment on the outside of their building. They achieve a CoP (coefficient of performance) of 60 and a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of less than 1.2.

Fire protection for several sites of Canberra Data Centres in Australia is provided by a Victaulic Vortex system that uses nitrogen and water as complementary extinguishing agents. The Vortex 1500 fire-suppression system is provided as a base service to all the data centres’ clients.

Designed for energy efficiency, Wolseley UK’s new data centre continues to improve its performance and has enough solar energy to power it during the summer. Dylan Lupton explains.

Weatherite Group has opened a state-of-the-art performance-testing centre, strengthening its position as a provider of data-centre cooling systems. The test centre will enable customers to see their chosen cooling equipment in operation and also monitor, interrogate and review prior to its installation.

Post-occupancy evaluation (PoE) to assess how effectively the services in a data centre perform is too late. Thorough testing before a data centre is handed over will ensure that a new facility meets up to expectations, as Dave Wolfenden of heatload.co.uk explains.

Interserve, working with data-centre specialist Sudlows, has completed a contract to support an FTSE 100 utility company in the development and delivery of its data-centre strategy. It is the latest in a number of key consultancy projects between the two companies.

Data centres and data rooms use a lot of energy, but how can the effect of energy-saving measures be assessed? Monitoring the power usage effectiveness (PUE) is one approach. Richard Clifford of Keysource explains what is it and why is it useful.

Airbloc, part of Nortek Global HVAC (UK) Ltd, Europe’s leading developer and manufacturer of energy-efficient HVAC systems, has developed a range of commercial/retail revolving-door air curtains, designed to give neat and discreet solution to prevent continuous draughts but still let in a certain amount of cold air at every rotation.

Stelrad Radiators has been presented with the ‘2015 supplier award for rapid speed of response’ by Grahams Plumbers Merchants. The award was presented at the recent national suppliers conference and took into consideration feedback from the group’s branches around the county and reflected the ongoing day-to-day response provided by Stelrad, not just a one-off response situation.

Grundfos Pumps is offering 11 training courses this year. The range of courses means there is something to suit everyone, whether they are starting out on their career or have been working in the industry for many years.

Zero’s heat-interface unit achieves significant improvements in efficiency and fuel-cost savings with the use of its built-in Minibems control technology. Acting as the ‘brains’ of the HIU, Minibems is a building-management system that monitors and controls a heat network to reduce cost, improve efficiency and improve ease of management. The information available enables, for example, the temperature of the primary flow to be controlled.

Sensors from Sontay for car parks ensure adequate ventilation and can also control the lighting in a car park. The GS-S and GS-CO ranges can monitor CO, CO2, NO2 and SO2.

This cascade unit, which is available from Reflex UK, combines the functions of boiler manifold and low-loss header for heating circuits in a single unit. They have outputs of up to 600 kW and are made by Sinusverteiler in Germany. Within the rectangular cross section is a series of water ways to deliver the functions of manifold and low-loss header. Operating conditions are up to 6 bar and 110°C, and they can also be used in cooling applications.

Hamworthy Heating has improved on an icon with its latest range of condensing boilers. The Wessex ModuMax mk3 boiler builds on the heritage of a range that has been in production for 10 years. Features include enhanced built-in control, ∆T of up to 40 K and a 10-year warranty on the primary heat cell.

Fully assembled and tested plate heat exchangers can be supplied by BSS within seven working days of order from a stock of components. Applications for the BOSS i-Series of plate heat exchangers include generating heating and cooling water for large buildings such as colleges, hospitals, offices and sports facilities.

VickersVision, from Vickers Electronics works alongside the V42 energy-management system to provide access to energy-management systems by using an app designed for mobile devices or via a web browser on desktop devices. The V42 is a centralised control unit that interfaces with existing industrial heating and regulates consumption using highly accurate digital sensors strategically place throughout the site and calibrated to ensure accuracy to ±0.1 K.

R32 is the refrigerant in two new product lines added to Panasonic’s Etherea range of air-conditioning systems. They are the Z and TZ units for wall mounting and have a clean, fresh, white design.

Bosch Commercial & Industrial has extended its CHP range with a module designed for smaller commercial applications. This module has an electrical output of 12 kW and joins the current range of electrical outputs from 19 to 400 kW. Applications include leisure centres and nursing homes.

The Smart Core lighting-control software developed by amBX is designed to be at the heart of connected lighting system enabled by the Internet of Things. Digital LED lighting can be connected and powered by IP networks (power over Ethernet), and Smart Core can control it without the need for costly programming or complex technical interfaces.

Rinnai’s Infinity HDC1600i/e low-NOx gas-fired continuous-flow water heater delivers commercial quantities of hot water — up to 37 l/min on demand. Like all the company’s gas-fired water heaters, it has an A-rated eco label and has an efficiency of 107%.

Viessman’s Vitosol200-FM solar-thermal flat panel ends the problem of overheating and stagnation with the use of ThermProtect, a patented ‘intelligent’ absorber layer that, through temperature-dependent change in its crystal structures, adjusts automatically to changes in sunlight and heat absorption.

Apollo Fire Detectors has introduced new visual alarm devices (VADs) for installing on walls or ceilings. They run on Apollo’s XP95 and Discovery digital protocols. For ease of installation, these loop-powered VADs are mounted using Apollo’s first-fix base.

Atag Commercial’s A Series of gas-fired boilers have state-of-the-art heat exchanges using stainless-steel tubing. They have efficiencies of up to 98%, with emissions that meet or exceed European standards.

Security grilles that are designed to meet the specific requirements of the prison and detention services are available from Waterloo Air Products. Rick Edmondson, company chairman, says, ‘Our security grilles combine high-quality air distribution with aesthetics, and they are fully compliant in environments where security and safety are paramount.’

Fujitsu has introduced a range of 10 kW single split wall-mounted air-conditioning units and a range ceiling cassettes with airflow all round, including at the corners. With traditional cassettes, four louvres along each edge direct air in four separate streams, With this 360° cassette, there is just one uninterrupted air stream.

The eSight Envi energy dashboard from eSight Energy displays engaging and interactive energy data. It provides an accessible solution to enable organisations to understand and promote energy performance. The interface enables companies to monitor energy consumption, navigate sites and promote savings. It is ideal for public display or accessible from a personal device.

The Smart[3] LED luminaire from Gewiss has an ingress protection rating of IP66/IP69 — making it waterproof, dustproof and suitable for cleaning with a high-pressure hot-water jet. The fittings are very easy to install and can replace fluorescent fittings from 2 ft 18 W single through to 5 ft 58 W twin fittings without having to alter fixings.

Timeguard’s range of compact surface-mounted IP65 LED step lighting come in a variety of shapes and, being double insulated and having low power consumption, need only very lightweight cable. Light output is from 20 to 24 lm.

Venture Lighting Europe has prepared a catalogue of its VLED LED lighting solutions. The 48-page catalogue displays the wide range of VLED luminaires — including the smart Integrated Driver Technology and new, industrial high-bay and low-bay fittings, panels, spotlights and downlights, and its retrofit and street-lighting solutions.

Rinnai, which supplies continuous-flow water heaters, has added its own BIM shelf ‘live’ to its web site to coincide with the industry-wide implementation of Level 2 BIM.