A Futurebuild Exclusive – Primary Energy Report

Next week, the Excel, London is hosting Futurebuild 2019, an event aimed at tackling the biggest challenges impacting the built environment.

This event is coming at a critical time in the industry, with the release of documents, such as the UK Housing: Fit for the future? report by the Committee on Climate Change, suggesting the potential for radical change to current construction practices.

With the Part L and Part F consultations due this Spring and expected to become legally enforceable in 2020, it has never been more critical to have an understanding of where the industry is heading, as, just over a year from now, construction and HVAC specification could look very different.

One of these changes, which the Government intends to include in the Part L consultation, is to move the energy performance target for new buildings away from carbon emission, to be based instead on primary energy.

What is primary energy?

Primary energy is a reflection of how much raw fuel, also known as primary energy, is used to generate a unit of final energy. This includes the energy used to create, transform and transport the energy from its raw form to where it is used.

Although the industry currently shows compliance through the reduction of carbon emissions, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive requires all new buildings to be nearly zero-energy by the end of 2020, and this must be measured in primary energy.

What impact will this have on the industry and on HVAC specification?

The legal requirement of using primary energy means that the UK must evaluate its compliance processes.

When considering meeting the energy performance target, developers and specifiers will need to start developing strategies based on reducing the primary energy usage of their buildings not the carbon emissions – although this isn’t to say that a carbon emissions target will not also be present, especially as the UK will still need to meet the legally-binding carbon budgets set in the Climate Change Act.

The move to focusing on primary energy, even if sat alongside separate carbon emission targets, is likely to change which HVAC solutions become specifiable. Therefore, it is important to understand what these new systems may be as soon as possible and how they can impact building design.

There are still elements of the move which are yet to be finalised, however, by looking at the direction of existing government strategies and using the draft SAP10 implementation software, it is possible to gain early insight into what this could mean for the industry.

A Primary Energy Impact Analysis

At Glen Dimplex Heating and Ventilation, we know how it can often be difficult to find the time to read through new industry strategies, plans and other legislative pieces.

This is why we have a team of people working to not only understand, but also to influence the direction of the industry, so we are able to keep you up to date with the changes which affect HVAC specification.

It is from this team that we have created our newest report, which we are launching at Futurebuild on the 5th, 6th and 7th March, based on the potential impact of the transition to primary energy.

The report covers subjects such as why primary energy is important, what the current factors listed in the draft SAP10 could mean specification and how the transition will need to be aligned with other industry documents, such as the Clean Growth Strategy, to ensure that the market is heading in one unified direction.

Such is the potential impact of this transition, we have already had requests to hold a seminar event based on primary energy and other topics which affect construction and HVAC specification, and we are currently underway in booking speakers from across the industry to join us

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If you would like a copy of the report or to register your interest for the seminar event, then visit our stand at Futurebuild. You can find us in the Offsite Hub on stand G36, where we will have copies of the report to hand and look forward to discussing primary energy and other industry developments with you.