Delivering more comfort using less energy is the key to reducing carbon emissions from buildings. David Leatherbarrow reviews how chilled ceilings and beams can do just this.

Benjamin Jones finds lessons in looking at historic buildings to discover effective ways to meet carbon-reduction targets.

The owners of Hever Castle in Kent have installed a Windhager LogWin gasification boiler as part of their commitment to become more environmentally friendly. This 50 kW boiler is part of a £500 000 project to update the castle, shop and residential buildings and will be fuelled using timber from the surrounding woodland.

As part of extension and upgrading of one of its offices in Blackpool, National Savings & Investments has achieved a 40% cut in lighting energy consumption by installing an Ex-Or lighting-management system. Lighting control is one of several technologies used during the upgrade, giving an overall annual reduction in CO2 emissions of 51 t and a saving on energy bills of £13 000 a year. The Energy Performance Certificate has improved from D to B.

Supplying more than 220 V to most electrical equipment is wasteful of energy and can dramatically shorten its life. But the UK voltage is nominally 240 V, which is why voltage optimisers can be very attractive. Jeremy Dodge explains how.

The ability of centralised energy centres to reduce carbon emissions is one of the reasons for their growing popularity. They bring clear environmental benefits but it is important to ensure that centralised heating plant is designed to give maximum energy efficiency with minimum carbon emissions. Geoff Lord explains.

Lee Nurse reviews the impact on energy consumption and carbon emissions of the Building Regulations for ventilation in new housing.

Daikin Europe’s range of low-temperature air-to-water heat pumps has been extended with a new indoor unit (hydrobox) and hot-water cylinder. This floor-standing reduces installation times and improves the COP for producing domestic hot water. The cylinder is mounted on top of the hydrobox.

Hoval has marked the upgrading of its training centre at the Centre of Renewable Energy (CORE) in Nottinghamshire with an open day for students from Nottingham University Faculty of Engineering. 12 students visited the facility for a presentation and discussion with Hoval’s renewables experts followed by hands-on examination of fully functional heat pumps, solar-thermal systems, biomass boilers, photo-voltaic system and wind turbine installed at the centre.

The move towards lower-carbon buildings need to be seen in the light of the practical considerations of maintaining comfort levels. So where comfort cooling is required, it needs to be efficient, says Dean Ward.

The green credentials of a remodelled 2-storey building of the Ministry of Defence at Imjin Barracks have been enhanced with the provision of natural ventilation and natural daylight using Passivent systems. Defence Estates, the property and estates-management arm of the MoD worked with Debut Services on the projects, which will centralise the service and veterans agency at the Barracks. A key criterion of the design brief was for the 3800 m2 1960s building to achieve an ‘Excellent’ DREAM, the defence equivalent of BREEAM.

Andrews Water Heaters has supplied a solar water-heating system for the new award-winning Van Hage garden and leisure retail store at Peterborough Garden Park. Selected by consulting engineers Patrick Mills Associates, The Solarflow system preheats water supplied to two Ecoflo water heaters that supply domestic hot water for the entire building. Solar energy is expected to meet about half of the annual demand for hot water.

Baxi Commercial Division has a permanent stand at the Building Centre in London that provides visitors with hands-on experience of selected high-efficiency products and low- to zero-carbon (LZC) solutions. Products on display include a NEOflo high-efficiency storage water heater from Andrews Water Heaters, the Paramount two wall-hung boiler and Sirius SAT heat box solution from Potterton Commercial and the DACHs mini-CHP unit from Baxi-SenerTec UK.

Having heard from a BBC ‘Songs of praise’ feature on the installation of solar photo-voltaic panels on St Denys Church in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the former warden of All Saints Church at Wing with Grove in Buckinghamshire, Martin Findlay, paid a visit. That visit led to the installation of 54 solar PV panels from Mitsubishi Electric to reduce the carbon footprint of St Denys Church and generate an annual income under the Government’s Feed-in Tariff.

United Biscuits has reduced CO2 emissions by over 27 t at its headquarters in Middlesex as part of a wide-ranging sustainability programme with Cofely. Gas consumption has been reduced by 27% and electricity consumption by 5.2% by a range of works forming the first phase of an ongoing energy-conservation programme as part of Cofely’s contract for energy and facilities management.