Modern Building Services

MODERN BUILDING SERVICES DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 21 FEATURE COMMISSIONING Soho Place A development alongside the Tottenham Court Road tube station has a number of innovations worthy of note. It uses a ‘plug and play’ energy centre and bio-diverse roof areas. Embodied carbon has been offset using verified schemes. The target is for BREEAM Outstanding, LEED Gold, and EPC B energy standards. Project Jupiter in Leamington Spa A state of the art, high-capacity laboratory complex built to provide quality Covid testing facilities using cutting-edge technologies. The carbon footprint was minimised by re-using an existing warehouse building, along with some of the electrical infrastructure within the building. These buildings used a variety of methods to become environmentally friendly, including photovoltaic panels, off-site modular construction, recycling of wastewater, CHP engines, district heating and cooling systems, careful selection of materials, attention to access and maintenance strategies to help reduce running costs. The overall picture from this sample of quality projects is that the UK construction industry employs a wide range of high- tech, innovative solutions aimed at reducing carbon footprints and environmental impacts, increasing energy efficiencies, and improving the occupant’s experience. With that wide range of high-tech solutions comes the potential pitfalls inmaking themall work together. The design engineers on any project will start out fully intending that all of the systems are fully integrated and work together seamlessly and, on paper – OK on screen these days, they almost certainly will. It is also true that prettymuch every project is a dynamic entity that changes over time. This might be due, for example, to variations in the client’s requirements or themanufacturer’s developments in the equipment being used. Occasionally theremay also be just a simplemistake. All of a sudden, two systems that should have worked seamlessly together cannot even recognise each other; a control valve does not have sufficient authority over a revised flow rate or two items of equipment turn out to have different types of Modbus communication protocol. Even something as simple as normally open versus normally closed contacts or mismatched baud rates can cause unexpected problems that take time and effort to resolve. There is no doubt that buildings with this level of sophistication and requiring such a high degree of integration require a significant input of commissioning and commissioning management expertise to knit the constituent parts together, even without any of the problems mentioned. There is already a marked element of systems engineering thinking needed and the impression that this aspect of a construction project will become more and more important grows by the day. It is fortunate, therefore, that some of the forward thinkers in the building services sector are rising to the challenges that these developments pose. The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers has recently undertaken a comprehensive review and update of their Commissioning Code M: Commissioning Management. They are also in the process of updating some of their other codes, such as Code A for air systems and CodeW for water systems. The CSA helped to finance this exercise and also provided some of the members of the steering group that contributed to and oversaw the process. It is also important that the CSA has itself instigated the ‘Introduction to Commissioning Management’ training course alongside its existing commissioning engineer training material and now also has a commissioning management path of development in place. It is also understood that BSRIA is looking closely at revisions for some of their applicable Guides like BG 49/2015 Commissioning Air Systems. Again, the CSA stands ready to contribute to this initiative. The conclusion is that there has undoubtedly been a significant increase in the complexity of the services integration in buildings and indications are that this is likely to continue. It will require a corresponding shift in the skill set of the testing and commissioning function and this is already being reflected in the progress shown in available training material from major industry bodies. And just one final thought. The projects mentioned above that made the finalists list in the CSA awards were all more than worthy of that accolade and were prime examples of a successful approach to commissioning – perhaps it is no surprise that all of them employed CSA Member companies to achieve that. More information can be found at www.csa.org.uk T-Zone, Kings Cross, London One Za'abeel in Dubai Battersea Power Station in London