Modern Building Services

6 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES SEPTEMBER 2022 INDUSTRY NEWS Living wall firm celebrates 15-year anniversary Biotecture, a company in the living wall sector, is celebrating its 15th year anniversary with an eye on the future. The business, based near Chichester, was established in 2007 by Richard Sabin and Mark Laurence with the aim of transforming urban environments and reconnecting people with nature. Richard and Mark developed a hydroponic living wall system, which helped to change the perception of living walls from a novelty landscaping feature into a widely recognised cladding material. Biotecture’s modular system is flexible, resilient, and has a low water usage and it can be seen across London and UK on projects such as 20 Fenchurch Street (TheWalkie-Talkie) and Wimbledon’s No.1 Court. By staying true to our original vision, Biotecture, today, has successfully redefined urban environments and we are proud to have played a part in reconnecting people to nature. www.biotecture.uk.com Veolia extends energy savings at Royal Berkshire Hospital Global resourcemanagement company, Veolia, is now increasing energy savings at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading following a 15 year extension to the existing contract. The £9.7million works have seen the 740 bed Hospital move a step nearer a zero-carbon future by installing hydrogen-ready boilers, believed to be the first use of this technology in the NHS. By installingmore efficient boilers, reducing distribution heat losses, and improving control of the heating and hot water systems the hospital will save around 3.8GWh of gas and 850 tonnes of carbon per year. This highly complex and difficult process, which is self-funding from the energy savings, covered completely removing the existing steam generation and distribution from the site and converting to Low Temperature Hot Water. This involved installing the new network, comprising around 3km of pipework and 44 heat exchangers, whilst the existing system continued to supply vital heating and hot water to the medical facilities. This challenging project was funded from the Government Health Infrastructure Plan, that required the project to be completed by the close of the financial year. www.veolia.co.uk Heating installers split on whether to begin fitting heat pumps, Baxi report finds The transition to low carbon heating is at a finely balanced tipping point with installers split on whether they will be installing heat pumps in their customers’ homes. That’s the main finding of a new report from heat solutions provider Baxi which assesses what would encourage installers to take the leap to low carbon sources of heat. Nearly a third of installers – equivalent to about 37,000 of the more than 130,000 of the UK’s heating engineers – are prepared to embrace heat pumps in the near future. By contrast, around 30% say they are extremely unlikely to install heat pumps. The government is targeting 600,000 heat pump installations every year by 2028. That is ten times the current market and represents a transformation from early adoption to a mass market proposition. It would require an army of low-carbon heating installers to be assisting homeowners and encourage them to make the change. Amongst the main findings in the report “Heating Installers: Taking the Leap to a Low Carbon Future” are that the government and the industry will need to address the important issue of training costs, ensuring there is enough demand from customers and reducing paperwork. Our report www.baxi.co.uk/news/heating-installers-split-on-whether- to-begin-fitting-heat-pumps makes a series of recommendations which include spelling out stronger government initiatives that will drive demand for heat pumps over the coming decade; support for training costs on a first come-first served basis; and an industry wide campaign to market the role of a low carbon heating installer to attract new entrants. www.baxi.co.uk CSA Conference (finally) staged to great applause Despite several enforced postponements due to COVID, coupled with the unfortunate timing of a national rail strike, the CSA’s long-awaited ‘Making Buildings Work’ event took place at the iconic Gherkin building in London on Wednesday 22nd June. Commissioning is becoming increasingly important to clients and to the construction project teams that create assets for them. Why is this? Because in a world of accelerating technological advancement, increasing building complexity, tightening regulatory constraints, growing consumer demand for quality, surging environmental consciousness, and an urgent need to de-carbonise buildings, it is impossible to consistently deliver required project outcomes without having a correctly executed commissioning process in place. In recognition of this, a new best practice guide about the commissioning process and its management will shortly be published by CIBSE and the CSA – Commissioning Code M: Management. The aim of this conference was to present what a correctly executed commissioning process looks like, and to illustrate some key things that project teams need to get right at various stages of the process and consider. A short video was taken throughout the day and is now available to view - www.csa-conference.co.uk www.csa.org.uk