More than 40% of the UK's primary energy demand is related to buildings for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and powering electrical appliances. As most buildings are not designed for optimum energy use, there is significant potential to reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. The challenge lies in encouraging the construction industry to carry out energy-conscious refurbishment as well as making energy users aware of their behaviour. This is vital if the government's target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 80% of the 1990 value by 2050 is to be achieved since the annual building stock turnover is very low in the UK (~ 1% per annum). However, as Figure 1 shows for the commercial building stock, the potential for achieving step changes through refurbishment is high as a large number of existing buildings can be expected to face routine refurbishment within the next two decades.
A major focus of the Sustainable Energy Research Group's built environment research are commercial buildings and their performance, in particular the impacts of different façade systems and structures on energy consumption and indoor comfort. Extensive data monitoring of environmental conditions inside various offices and surveys of users have highlighted problems with overheating in summer. However, the studies also showed that responsive design, good building management and staff knowledge of how the systems work can make a significant difference to a building’s performance.
The group has many years of research experience investigating Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs) for daylighting and solar shading purposes and is currently running a performance test of the latest generation of light-directing HOEs on the University's Hartley Library. Further tests looking at various 'smart' glazing technologies for solar shading are going to be conducted during 2009.
In addition to its building related research the group is also interested in city spaces. Current research is focussing on thermal performance studies, energy consumption assessment and user behaviour implications on a larger scale urban environment. A further area of interest are urban heat island effects and their consequences for the city. Research is not confined to the UK only. For example, the group is partner in a research team involved in research on ecoregions in China and the UK.
Funding for the work on the built environment has come from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the European Union's Fifth Research Framework Programme (FP5) and the University’s School of Civil Engineering and the Environment.
