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The Scottish Environmental Technology Network

sustainable technology

We all know that sustainable technology is out there yet we see almost reluctant to use it, even something a simple as changing all your lightbulbs to energy saving ones. Ok so we'll conceed that when they first came out energy saving bulbs had all the colour rendition and allure of a wet blanket but they really aren't that bad now - honest! Insulation is another technology that has advanced in leaps and bounds in the last thirty years yet when we go to some sites we still witness poorly insulated new build properties.

Sustainable technology is far more than just lightbulbs and insulation its about making best use of resources, materials and construction techniques. If we use an example of a reasonably well specified standard british house, if it was to be cabled conventionally then there would be at least eight totally separate cable systems installed in the property (lighting, mains power, doorbell/ door entry, heating, tv, phone, plus potentially an alarm system, LAN/Computer, audio, cctv etc). When you get down to it that is a lot of copper, plastic not to mention the sheer effort involved in installing and pulling cables. If you utilised KNX and MediaX cable technologies it would be possible to reduce that number to four integrated and complimentary cable systems in the property (KNX bus, mains power, lighting power and CAT8).

If we take that example a little further and add some other sustainable technologies (again all controlled by KNX) in like ground source heating, triple glazing, solar panels, heat recovery as well as the very latest in insulationg materials then you have a truly energy efficient building.

A recent study has indicated that operating costs for a utility building (school, office, hospital, etc) can be around 20% of their build cost every year to heat, light and maintain and that on average the operating costs exceed the construction costs after seven years.

The best way we can illustrate this is by giving you an example we have found (from an excellent white paper entitled 'KNX Optimised Energy Buildings' by John Lynch of Davenham Switchgear Limited) and if we modify the examle slightly and expand it a little further and apply the results of a year long study conducted by Professor Manfred Mevenkamp of the University of Bremen[1] on two identical seminar rooms in the University during 2006 with similar useage patterns - one cabled conventionally and the other cabled utilising KNX technology where energy saving of up to 50% were acheived and apply it to John's basic formula.

A New Primary School building requires an initial investment of £14M (construction costs etc). The annual operating costs amount to around £2M. Over a lifetime of 20 years, the following life-cycle costs are generated:

£14M + 20 years x £2M = £54M

BUT If we were to undertake an additional investment and install KNX and other energy saving technology, we will assume (taking another rule of thumb) that the cost of installing this technology is 15% of the initial build cost (£2.1M) and that the following life-cycle costs are generated. We will err on the side of caution and say that the energy savings of 50% seen by Professor Mevenkamp were reduced to 40% for the sake of practicality and that not all of the operating costs were energy related which will reduce this figure down to 30% we then reveal.:

(£14M + £2.1) + 20(£2M - 30%)
=
£16.1M + 20(£1.4M) = £44.1M

In other words, froman initial additional investment of £2.1M in KNX and other energy management technology the life-cycle costs of the primary school are reduced by almost £10M - thats a saving of £500k per year - and we are not taking into account the fact that the cost of energy is rising month by month either!

No matter which way you look at it THAT'S sustainable technology.

 

 

 

 

[1] Page 5 - 'KNX Journal' 1/2007 "KNX Standard Enables Significant Energy Savings" by M. Windberger click here for full article