An interesting seminar organised by RIBA Journal
Apparently it starts at 12, and is a series of lectures about designing buildings that PRODUCE power, it includes presentations from most of the current micro power supplies companies. I will go along and report back..
"This Thursday 100% Detail kicks off with a great seminar programme in collaboration with the RIBA Journal on designing renewable energy generation into buildings.
We are calling it High Energy Buildings. It has the new head of the London Climate Change Agency discussing plans for energy generating buildings and planning demands with developer Urban Splash, and architects from Wilkinson Eyre, Grimshaw and Partners and Make how they are working to generate energy. There is also a primer on the technologies themselves.
It would be great if you could come along to all or some of it. It starts at 12 in Earl's Court, London and there are also two sessions in the afternoon, details attached. Please feel free to forward to anyone you think might be interested.
If you can't make it to the seminars there are also drinks in the evening. Bring the latest RIBA Journal and register free on day,"
High Energy Buildings
Moderator: Peak Moderation
High Energy Buildings
pɐɯ ǝuoƃ s,plɹoʍ ǝɥʇ
Fascinating Series of talks...
Some Ideas and points raised....
Woking Borough Council has set up their own Utility Company with their own electricity supply grid, a CHP micro power station and a fuel cell powered leisure centre. They believe that the future is to totally bypass the National Grid, and create an ?Energy Internet?, a network of micro-PowerStation?s using a range of fuels to supply a small area. The current system provides 98% of Woking?s electricity requirement.
New Islington by ?Urban Splash? is going to create it?s own Utility company in a similar manner, this will be combined with micro generation on every building to side-step the national grid. Every house will be fitted with the new range of Stirling engine gas powered domestic CHP boilers with will produce 100% of the heat and 25% of the electricity requirement for each home (they also work in a power cut).
http://www.microgen.com/main2.swf
Some amazing projects by Grimshaw architects (who designed the Eden Centre), firstly a 5km artificial lagoon off the coast of Wales that uses tidal turbines to produce electricity by capturing the sea level at high tide and releasing the water at low tide. Second Project was a gigantic vertical axis wind turbine (the size of two post office towers) to be build of the coast of Dubai. The final project was the most stunning it?s called ?The Kew of the North? it has huge (6 storey high) banked walls around a triple bowl shaped enclosure. These walls are constructed from landfill waste and contain vast bio-digesters, which will be filled with organic landfill waste. They will provide heat for the structure via the rotting process over the next fifty years, they will also create liquid fertiliser and produce a methane bio-gases which will be sold. The bowl will contain the largest tropical rainforest ecosystem (like Eden except 4 times the size), this will include all the relevant animals in a protected environment. They calculated that the project would produce approximately ?12 million of revenue, from renewable energy supply per year even without any visitors.
There were a series of presentations from renewable energy supply companies including heat pumps, photo-voltaics, and inter-seasonal thermal heat stores.
These were very interesting, the basic premise it that during summer heat is pumped out of dwellings / buildings and stored in the ground, whilst coolth is pumped out of the ground and used to cool the buildings. During the winter the process is reversed. The store uses the naturally occurring properties of the water table to store the energy for up to six months at a time.
I will post a full report once it is typed up?
Some Ideas and points raised....
Woking Borough Council has set up their own Utility Company with their own electricity supply grid, a CHP micro power station and a fuel cell powered leisure centre. They believe that the future is to totally bypass the National Grid, and create an ?Energy Internet?, a network of micro-PowerStation?s using a range of fuels to supply a small area. The current system provides 98% of Woking?s electricity requirement.
New Islington by ?Urban Splash? is going to create it?s own Utility company in a similar manner, this will be combined with micro generation on every building to side-step the national grid. Every house will be fitted with the new range of Stirling engine gas powered domestic CHP boilers with will produce 100% of the heat and 25% of the electricity requirement for each home (they also work in a power cut).
http://www.microgen.com/main2.swf
Some amazing projects by Grimshaw architects (who designed the Eden Centre), firstly a 5km artificial lagoon off the coast of Wales that uses tidal turbines to produce electricity by capturing the sea level at high tide and releasing the water at low tide. Second Project was a gigantic vertical axis wind turbine (the size of two post office towers) to be build of the coast of Dubai. The final project was the most stunning it?s called ?The Kew of the North? it has huge (6 storey high) banked walls around a triple bowl shaped enclosure. These walls are constructed from landfill waste and contain vast bio-digesters, which will be filled with organic landfill waste. They will provide heat for the structure via the rotting process over the next fifty years, they will also create liquid fertiliser and produce a methane bio-gases which will be sold. The bowl will contain the largest tropical rainforest ecosystem (like Eden except 4 times the size), this will include all the relevant animals in a protected environment. They calculated that the project would produce approximately ?12 million of revenue, from renewable energy supply per year even without any visitors.
There were a series of presentations from renewable energy supply companies including heat pumps, photo-voltaics, and inter-seasonal thermal heat stores.
These were very interesting, the basic premise it that during summer heat is pumped out of dwellings / buildings and stored in the ground, whilst coolth is pumped out of the ground and used to cool the buildings. During the winter the process is reversed. The store uses the naturally occurring properties of the water table to store the energy for up to six months at a time.
I will post a full report once it is typed up?
pɐɯ ǝuoƃ s,plɹoʍ ǝɥʇ
Grey energy , embedded energy has to be taken into account when building . Investing tens of thousands of ?s into a building to support it with energy resp. to make it deliver energy demands ten's of thousands of ?s of energy.
The idea of energy saving is not to use energy.
I don't know of any existing silica factory (foto voltaic cells ) or a windmill factory ( steel and carbon fibre ) that is totally energy self sufficient . Market mechanisms demand the use of the cheapest resources .
The German steel mills for example in the past used to deliver most of their output to the car industry . Now they deliver most of their steel to the wind mill industry .
And they are buying their energy where it is cheapest . Fossile and nuclear.
Building a home for a hundred thousand means spending energy for a hundred thousand .That is simple capitalism.
Digging over bays and filling them with steel and concrete to build wave power plants and connecting them with cables to run fun fairs and computerised homes is not the solution to a global energy crisis.
Every penny spend is worth a penny of energy.
Diogenes lost his head 3000 years ago for saying that . The French Heratics ended in the fire for saying this . That is dangerous thinking-because it is so true.
Or the story about the camel going through a needle hole ....
The idea of energy saving is not to use energy.
I don't know of any existing silica factory (foto voltaic cells ) or a windmill factory ( steel and carbon fibre ) that is totally energy self sufficient . Market mechanisms demand the use of the cheapest resources .
The German steel mills for example in the past used to deliver most of their output to the car industry . Now they deliver most of their steel to the wind mill industry .
And they are buying their energy where it is cheapest . Fossile and nuclear.
Building a home for a hundred thousand means spending energy for a hundred thousand .That is simple capitalism.
Digging over bays and filling them with steel and concrete to build wave power plants and connecting them with cables to run fun fairs and computerised homes is not the solution to a global energy crisis.
Every penny spend is worth a penny of energy.
Diogenes lost his head 3000 years ago for saying that . The French Heratics ended in the fire for saying this . That is dangerous thinking-because it is so true.
Or the story about the camel going through a needle hole ....