Achieving carbon reduction from listed buildings in the UK: A case study on The Royal Academy of Engineering, London

A carbon reduction strategy for a historic Grade 1 listed office building in London is presented. The study evaluates the impact of49 different carbon abatement options, quantified using building simulation software, auditing procedures and qualitative methods. The impact of each option is assessed against three criteria: carbon abatement potential, practicality and cost. The strategy comprises of18interventions,integrated within 12 key recommendations. Accumulative reduction of 37% (below a 2009 carbon emissions baseline)appears achievable and only feasible with heavy reliance on changes in occupant behaviour. This theme appears central in achieving realistic and significant carbon savings from listed buildings, where planning constraints relinquish potential for major building fabric alteration and renewable energy installations.

A model of UK domestic appliance-use using Artificial Neural Networks

The development of an Artificial Neural Network model of UK domestic appliance energy consumption is presented. The model uses diary-style appliance use data and a survey questionnaire collected from 51 households during the summer of 2010. It also incorporates measured energy data and is sensitive to socioeconomic, physical dwelling and temperature variables. A prototype model is constructed in MATLAB using a two layer feed forward network with backpropagation training and has a12:10:24architecture.Model outputs include appliance load profiles which can be applied to the fields of energy planning (micro renewables and smart grids), building simulation tools and energy policy.

Space heating and hot water demand analysis of dwellings connected to district heating scheme in UK

To achieve CO2 emissions reductions the UK Building Regulations require developers of new residential buildings to calculate expected CO2 emissions arising from their energy consumption using a methodology such as Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP 2005) or, more recently SAP 2009. SAP encompasses all domestic heat consumption and a limited proportion of the electricity consumption. However, these calculations are rarely verified with real energy consumption and related CO2 emissions. This paper presents the results of an analysis based on weekly head demand data for more than 200 individual flats. The data is collected from recently built residential development connected to a district heating network. A methodology for separating out the domestic hot water use (DHW) and space heating demand (SH) has been developed and compares measured values to the demand calculated using SAP 2005 and 2009 methodologies. The analysis shows also the variance in DHW and SH consumption between both size of the flats and tenure (privately owned or housing association). Evaluation of the space heating consumption includes also an estimation of the heating degree day (HDD) base temperature for each block of flats and its comparison to the average base temperature calculated using the SAP 2005 methodology.

UK Zero Carbon Homes 2016 - Exemplary Development

In October 2008 UK government announced very ambitious commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of at least 34% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050 against a 1990 baseline. Consequently the government declares that new homes should be built to high environmental standards which means that from 2016 new homes will have to be built to a Zero Carbon standard. The paper sets out to present UK zero carbon residential development achieving the highest, Level 6 of Code for Sustainable Homes standard. Comprehensive information is provided about various environmental aspects of the housing development. Special attention is given to energy efficiency features of the houses and low carbon district heating solution which include biomass boiler, heat pumps, solar collectors and photovoltaic panels. The paper presents also challenges which designers and builders had to face delivering houses of the future.

Decision making for HVAC&R system selection for a typical office building in the UK

Demands for thermal comfort, better indoor air quality together with lower environmental impacts have had ascending trends in the last decade. In many circumstances, these demands could not be fully covered through the soft approach of bioclimatic design like optimisation of the building orientation and internal layout. This is mostly because of the dense urban environment and building internal energy loads. In such cases, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems make a key role to fulfill the requirements of indoor environment. Therefore, it is required to select the most proper HVAC&R system. In this study, a robust decision making approach for HVAC&R system selection is proposed. Technical performance, economic aspect and environmental impacts of 36 permutations of primary and secondary systems are taken into account to choose the most proper HVAC&R system for a case study office building. The building is a representative for the dominant form of office buildings in the UK. Dynamic performance evaluation of HVAC&R alternatives using TRNSYS package together with life cycle energy cost analysis provides a reliable basis for decision making. Six scenarios broadly cover the decision makers' attitudes on HVAC&R system selection which are analysed through Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). One of the significant outcomes reveals that, despite both the higher energy demand and more investment requirements associated with compound heating, cooling and power system (CCHP); this system is one of the top ranked alternatives due to the lower energy cost and C02 emissions. The sensitivity analysis reveals that in all six scenarios, the first five top ranked alternatives are not changed. Finally, the proposed approach and the results could be used by researchers and designers especially in the early stages of a design process in which all involved bodies face the lack of time, information and tools for evaluation of a variety of systems.

A combined engineering and statistical model of UK domestic appliance electrical load profiles

The development of a combined engineering and statistical Artificial Neural Network model of UK domestic appliance load profiles is presented. The model uses diary-style appliance use data and a survey questionnaire collected from 51 suburban households and 46 rural households during the summer of 2010 and2011 respectively. It also incorporates measured energy data and is sensitive to socioeconomic, physical dwelling and temperature variables. A prototype model is constructed in MATLAB using a two layer feed forward network with back propagation training which has a 12:10:24 architecture. Model outputs include appliance load profiles which can be applied to the fields of energy planning (microrenewables and smart grids), building simulation tools and energy policy.

Analysis of the intermediate housing market mechanism in the UK

Government policies have backed intermediate housing market mechanisms like shared equity, intermediate rented and shared ownership (SO) as potential routes for some households, who are otherwise squeezed between the social housing and the private market. The rhetoric deployed around such housing has regularly contained claims about its social progressiveness and role in facilitating socio-economic mobility, centring on a claim that SO schemes can encourage people to move from rented accommodation through a shared equity phase and into full owner-occupation. SO has been justified on the grounds of it being transitional state, rather than a permanent tenure. However SO buyers may be laden with economic cost-benefit structures that do not stack up evenly and as a consequence there may be little realistic prospect of ever reaching a preferred outcome. Such behaviours have received little empirical attention as yet despite, the SO model arguably offers a sub-optimal solution towards homeownership, or in terms of wider quality of life. Given the paucity of rigorous empirical work on this issue, this paper delineates the evidence so far and sets out a research agenda. Our analysis is based on a large dataset of new shared owners, observing an information base that spans the past decade. We then set out an agenda to further examine the behaviours of the SO occupants and to examine the implications for future public policy based on existing literature and our outline findings. This paper is particularly opportune at a time of economic uncertainty and an overriding ‘austerity’ drive in public funding in the UK, through which SO schemes have enjoyed support uninterruptedly thus far.

The basis of valuations for secured commercial property lending in the UK

In the context of the financial crash and the commercial property market downturn, this paper examines the basis of valuation used in the UK commercial property lending process. Post-crisis there is discussion of countercyclical measures including the monitoring of asset prices; however there is no consideration of a different approach to property valuation. This paper questions this omission, given the role that valuations play in the bank regulatory process. The different bases of valuation available to lenders within International Valuation Standards are identified as Market Value (MV), Mortgage Lending Value (MLV) and Investment Value (IV), with MV being the most used in the UK. Using the different bases in the period before the financial crisis, the UK property market is modelled at a national office, retail and industrial/warehouse sector level to determine the performance of each alternative valuation basis within the context of counter-cyclical pressures on lending. Both MLV and IV would have produced lower valuations and could have provided lenders with tools for more informed and prudent lending. The paper concludes by recognising some of the practical issues involved in adopting the different bases for the bank lending role but recommends a change to IV.

The impact of energy performance certificates on the rental and capital values of commercial property assets: some preliminary evidence from the UK

This paper focuses on the effect of energy performance ratings on the capital values, rental values and equivalent yields of UK commercial property assets. Of which a small number are also BREEAM rated, the study is based upon 708 commercial property assets held in the IPD UK Universe drawn from across all PAS segments. Incorporating a range of controls such as unexpired lease term, vacancy rate and tenant credit risk, hedonic regression procedures are used to estimate the effect of EPC rating. The study finds no evidence of a strong relationship between environmental and/or energy performance and rental and capital value. Bearing in mind the small number of BREEAM rated assets, there was a small but statistically significant effect on equivalent yield only. Similarly, there was no evidence that the EPC rating had any effect on Market Rent or Market Value with only minor effects of EPC ratings on equivalent yields. The preliminary conclusion is that energy labelling is not yet having the effects on Market Values and Market Rents that provide incentives for market participants to improve the energy efficiency of their commercial real estate assets.

Fit for planning? An evaluation of the application of development viability appraisal models in the UK planning system

The aim of this paper is to critically examine the application of development appraisal to viability assessment in the planning system. This evaluation is of development appraisal models in general and also their use in particular applications associated with estimating planning obligation capacity. The paper is organised into four themes: · The context and conceptual basis for development viability appraisal · A review of development viability appraisal methods · A discussion of selected key inputs into a development viability appraisal · A discussion of the applications of development viability appraisals in the planning system It is assumed that readers are familiar with the basic models and information needs of development viability appraisal rather than at the cutting edge of practice and/or academe

Income multiples and mortgage repossession in the UK

This paper presents the findings of the study that examines how income multiples for mortgage loan associates with home repossession using the data of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). It employs a statistical measure for improving regression efficiency with conditioning information in the form of lagged instrument to unravel the pattern of association evident from the data. Based on the data, the study investigates what level of income multiples is optimum – that is the income multiple that minimises home repossession. A sensitivity analysis was undertaken to show how home repossession responds to changes in income multiples. For each of the analytical tasks, the study compares the aggregate market, first-time-buyers, and home movers.

Change, rigidity & delay in the UK system of land-use development control

The British system of development control is time-consuming and uncertain in outcome. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly overloaded as it has gradually switched away from being centred on a traditional ‘is it an appropriate land-use?’ type approach to one based on multi-faceted inspections of projects and negotiations over the distribution of the potential financial gains arising from them. Recent policy developments have centred on improving the operation of development control. This paper argues that more fundamental issues may be a stake as well. Important market changes have increased workloads. Furthermore, the UK planning system's institutional framework encourages change to move in specific directions, which is not always helpful. If expectations of increased long-term housing supply are to be met more substantial changes to development control may be essential but hard to achieve.

UK planning controls and the market responsiveness of housing supply

There is growing international interest in the impact of regulatory controls on the supply of housing The UK has a particularly restrictive planning regime and a detailed and uncertain process of development control linked to it. This paper presents the findings of empirical research on the time taken to gain planning permission for selected recent major housing projects from a sample of local authorities in southern England. The scale of delay found was far greater than is indicated by average official data measuring the extent to which local authorities meet planning delay targets. Hedonic analysis indicated that there is considerable variation in time it takes local authorities to process planning applications, with the worst being four times slower than the best. Smaller builders and housing association developments are processed more quickly than those of large developers and small sites appear to be particularly time intensive. These results suggest that delays in development control may be a significant contributory factor to the low responsiveness of UK housing supply to upturns in market activity.

Long run relationships between City office rents and the economy in the UK: creating a database for research

This paper sets out progress during the first eighteen months of doctoral research into the City of London office market. The overall aim of the research is to explore relationships between office rents and the economy in the UK over the last 150 years. To do this, a database of lettings has been created from which a long run index of City office rents can be constructed. With this index, it should then be possible to analyse trends in rents and relationships with their long run determinants. The focus of this paper is on the creation of the rent database. First, it considers the existing secondary sources of long run rental data for the UK. This highlights a lack of information for years prior to 1970 and the need for primary data collection if earlier periods are to be studied. The paper then discusses the selection of the City of London and of the time period chosen for research. After this, it describes how a dataset covering the period 1860-1960 has been assembled using the records of property companies active in the City office market. It is hoped that, if successful, this research will contribute to existing knowledge on the long run characteristics of commercial real estate. In particular, it should add a price dimension (rents) to the existing long run information on stock/supply and investment. Hence, it should enable a more complete picture of the development and performance of commercial real estate through time to be gained.