IS THERE ENOUGH EFFORT DEVOTED TO INVESTIGATING INNOVATIVE WAYS OF REDUCING ENERGY DEMAND OF BUILDINGS?

  In my opinion, the top priority is to understand how buildings actually work in practice. This is the key to reducing energy demand of buildings. At present, there are many "innovative" solutions—but what we really need to know is whether they actually work. Monitoring and testing actual performance, and understanding whether people are comfortable in buildings, is vital to progressing energy efficiency. We have a number of low-energy possibilities, for example, for cooling commercial buildings—groundwater cooling, seasonal heat storage, etc in conjunction with good quality passive building with sun shading and thermal mass. However, if these buildings are "leaky", or managed incorrectly, they will use more energy and until we understand precisely how they are working we will not be in a position to evaluate the "best buy" for energy efficiency.

HAS PFI MADE A BENEFICIAL CONTRIBUTION TO UNDERSTANDING FULL LIFECYCLE ENERGY COST?

  Regrettably, my experience of PFI projects is that if the cost comparator is based on a low-capital, high running-cost model, (which it usually is) then the additional capital that a more sustainable solution would bring cannot be justified during the highly competitive bidding process. However, if the commissioning authority were to ask for a low or zero CO₂ building or give a specific CO₂ performance benchmark this would change—which a Code for Sustainable Building would bring about by defining such a benchmark.

12 December 2004