Modern Building Services

24 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 FEATURE NET ZERO A s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak addressed other world leaders in Egypt during COP27, his remarks nodded to the dilemma being faced by the world. “I know that for many, finances are tough right now,” he said, referring to unfulfilled commitments to ease the transition to lower-carbon energy and infrastructures in the developing world. Even as he travelled to Egypt, however, some UK observers have become more vocal in asking whether the country can afford to pay for the transition at home. As mentioned above the innovations to decarbonize buildings have brought the goal of Net Zero within reach. To achieve it, industry and government must work together to implement them. Now that the Prime Minister has returned from Egypt, his Government should embrace the opportunities in the coming months to accelerate the transition by enabling the public sector to lead the way. As the Chancellor and Prime Minister implement their Autumn Statement, public sector organisations must now balance the books while continuing to make progress towards the Net Zero goals of the organisation and the country as a whole. We must remember, we have made changes of this scale before. The technologies to decarbonise built infrastructure exist today. Moving away from fossil fuels offers not just benefits for the climate. The right solutions will pay for themselves with lower-cost heating and cooling in the medium term. And where the size of investment is a challenge, we must bring the same level of innovation to financing the changes that we have brought to developing the lower- carbon technologies themselves. According to the Climate Change Committee, nearly 20% of all UK greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings. Most of this is derived from the burning of fossil fuel to keep those buildings warm, including the 1.9 million manufacturing facilities, offices, schools, hospitals, leisure centres, and other public buildings. The technology to move away from fossil fuels to warm and cool buildings exists today. Moving away from separate systems to achieve that not only can reduce emissions but is more efficient. Much in the same way that stepping on the brake and accelerator in a car doesn’t improve it’s efficiency, separate systems for heating and cooling doesn’t improve the efficiency of buildings. And in the same way that increasingly we are making the move to electric vehicles that use braking to recover energy that can be used later for acceleration, heat pumps save energy in the switches between heating and cooling that in a larger building can occur several times a day. Instead of venting that energy into the atmosphere, it is recycled. While a gas boiler has maximum potential efficiency of 100%, heat pumps are able to achieve even greater than 100%, Since boilers convert chemical energy into heating energy whilst heat pumps transfer energy from the source to the target temperature level. Erik van Oossanen , Portfolio Leader Applied Heat Pumps and Chillers EMEA ANZ at Trane Technologies discusses that innovations to decarbonise buildings have brought the goal of Net Zero within reach. Could Heat as a Service be a solution to financing our transition to Net Zero?