The Challenge

The challenge is to reduce the overall energy demand of buildings, so that the mass switch to a renewable energy source neither overwhelms the grid, nor generates excessive future operating/energy costs. In some instances, there will be opportunities to connect to heat networks, however in many cases significant fabric upgrades will be required to reduce the heating/cooling demand of public sector buildings.

The partners

Hub West Scotland is a private sector development company who work in partnership with the public sector in the West of Scotland. They were interested, not only in understanding how best to develop these strategies across large, varied estates, but also how local authorities and other public bodies could benefit from working collaboratively to tackle this challenge, and so created the Net Zero Collaboration Group. Built Environment - Smarter Transformation (BE-ST) partnered with Hub West Scotland to host and lead this group. ECD Architects, Doig+Smith (cost consultants / Quantity Surveyors) and Rybka (M&E consultants) joined the team in the second phase of the project.

The project

The first phase of the project included a programme of learning, the creation of a resource-sharing platform, and a series of data-led activities that would position the contributing organisations to develop an informed strategic approach to decarbonising their estates. The second phase focused on the data, taking that into archetype modelling and completing detailed building studies.

The data

It was quickly acknowledged that the key to unlocking this problem was through effective and collaborative use of good quality data. As such, BE-ST led on an activity to create and complete a single, shared database that would consistently capture the information the partners required to firstly understand the baseline, and secondly allow us to define archetypes across the various estates.

Archetyping

The purpose of collecting all of this information was to use key building characteristics to categorise similar buildings into archetypes, to then complete detailed studies on a small selection from each category, and apply those same findings to the other buildings of the same archetype.

Phase 2 - the detailed studies

Following the first phase of the project, three Local Authorities were keen to move forward in further developing their data-informed retrofit strategy, and as such, continued to work collaboratively to procure consultants to carry-out detailed studies on key buildings, and to share the outcomes of those studies for the benefit of all.

Buildings from across the three council areas, as well a variety of use types, were sampled. The purpose of the studies was to identify what interventions would be required to retrofit them to a point where switching to a renewable heating source would be cost-neutral on operating costs (energy bills). The studies not only looked at the sequence of interventions required, and the impact each would have, but crucially included estimates for things such as cost and carbon reduction per m².

These figures and interventions were then modelled across the corresponding buildings of the same archetype, and used to create high-level estimates across entire estates.

Results 

This project was successful in that the Local Authorities involved are now armed with their estate-wide estimated costs and carbon savings, and an understanding of the retrofit approach to each building type in their estates, allowing them to forecast their retrofit works, alongside maintenance plans and other planned works, whilst ensuring key services are maintained.

Lorraine Wood, BE-ST project manager on the programme, says “The key to the success of this project was the openness and willingness of all participants to meet regularly, collaborate, and share learnings, as well as the collective strive for good quality data to underpin retrofit strategies and future decision-making.”

Lorraine adds “By continuing this collaborative way of working, hopefully even extending it to bring in more organisations, there is an opportunity to align the public sector in planned retrofit work at a larger scale, to really understand that longer term pipeline of activity, and the impact that might have on supply chain, skills and procurement frameworks.”