CASE STUDY | URBAN SCIENCES BUILDING vehicle (EV) filling stations of 175kW total capacity have also been submitted. The building itself is monitored by thousands of smart and micro sensors, which, in tandem with connections using open internet protocols, feed the control systems that ensure optimum building operation. To meet the stringent data-collection specification and resolve the challenges of finding BMS suppliers, the university adopted a strategic research partnership with Siemens. The controls will learn how the building is used and will respond by fine-tuning its energy needs. The scheme was developed in BIM, and the BIM model is now helping with the operation of the building and showing the conditions recorded by each of the sensors (for real-time data, see: 3d.usb.urbanobservatory.ac.uk). Unusually, the scheme has three (4m x 3.5m x 4m high) plantroom modules per floor, each capable of being monitored and controlled independently. The modules are stacked The atrium facing onto the Helix site on top of each other to form three towers, reaching from the ground floor to the roof. Mounted on the roof, above each plantroom stack, is a dry air cooler to reject waste heat. The 18 plantrooms are intended to allow different zones, cores and floors to be more closely controlled and switched on or off as part of research into time-deferrable, loadshedding initiatives. Such modularisation means maintenance costs are lower over the lifespan of the building, says Dowson. As part of the additional sustainability targets set at the outset of the project, the contractor was required to calculate the embodied carbon for the building, including all MEP systems and construction-site activities. However, none of the 13 MEP product manufacturers were able to provide Environmental Product Declaration certificates, so material quantities had to be calculated using the BIM model. The total embodied CO2 was found to be at least five times higher than one year of operational CO2 emissions. The buildings total energy usage was predicted by NG Bailey, using CIBSE TM54 at the design stage, to be 140.6 kWh.m-2 per year for electricity and 16.1 kWh.m-2 per year for gas equivalent to a DEC D. By comparison, Part L compliance figures were more than three times smaller, at 40 kWh.m-2 per year for electric and 7.1 kWh.m-2 per year for gas which, Dowson says, is a good illustration of why Part L should not be used as a prediction for in-use energy performance. In addition to the baseline operational energy prediction, two further TM54 operational scenarios were run, resulting in DEC ratings of D (98) and E (125), depending on how the building and systems were used. Scenarios to achieve a C (75) rating were also prepared, to give the university an idea of how it would go about achieving this performance. TM54 predictions v POE results Part L compliance v TM54 predictions 2,500 250 200 1,500 Energy use (kWh.m-2) MWh per year 2,000 n Heating n Cooling n Auxiliary n Lighting n Hot water n Equipment n Other (lifts) n Other 1,000 150 100 (humidification) n Renewable 50 500 0 0 TM54 Year 1 POE n Gas n Elec Part L (design) Part L (as-built) TM54 Scenario 1 TM54 Scenario 2 TM54 Scenario 3 TM54 Scenario 4 -50 38 December 2018 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Dec18 pp36-40 Urban Science centre.indd 38 23/11/2018 16:07