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SyStem
change
New directives emerging from Brussels
could transform our approach to system
design, writes Nick Stevenson
It is hard to imagine a more
complex piece of legislation than
the Eco-design of Energy Using
Products directive – or the directive
formerly known as the EuP. It has been
the cause of much debate among
manufacturers and design engineers,
and has been held up since 2009,
largely because the detail is so
challenging.
The new law – due to be enacted
this autumn – seeks to impose
environmental controls on every
stage of a product’s development and
operating life. According to European
Commission officials, 80% of a
product’s environmental impact is
determined during its design. Not
only is that hugely challenging, it
fundamentally shifts the priorities of a
building services design engineer.
Traditionally, a project team will
focus on what happens just before
and during activity on site. Products
are specified during the design phase
and closely monitored when they are
being installed and commissioned.
While thorough, this is not a ‘life-cycle’
approach. Building services engineers
will need to know more about the
design phase of a piece of equipment,
as well as what happens to the system
during its operating lifetime.
The Eco-design Directive seeks
to take a cradle-to-grave approach. It
will impose a framework for energy
efficiency standards from the very start
of the design phase, so that specifiers
have more information about the
equipment they work with. Logically, to
see this process through, the building
services engineering profession
needs to ensure that the products and
systems we specify and design are well
maintained. The directive recognises
this and seeks to ensure that the
energy saving principles established
at the outset are supported through a
product’s entire working life. It also
establishes the principle that building
services products are always supplied
as part of a system and, therefore, that
is how they should be evaluated.
The natural twin to this piece of
legislation is, therefore, post-occupancy
evaluation to ensure systems continue
to perform as designed. With the
recasting of the European Performance
of Buildings Directive (EPBD) – also
due later this year – we will see
wider application of Display Energy
Certificates (DECs) that
require regular analysis
of a building’s actual
energy consumption.
This will give us the
opportunity to revisit
our work post-handover
and check that
everything’s in order.
Further planned
changes to the EPBD
include the removal
of the size threshold
so that energy
efficiency improvements will apply
to all buildings; and there will be a
requirement for all public buildings to
prominently display building energy
certificates. The EC hopes the recast
directive will help to reduce the primary
energy used in Europe by 20% by 2020.
Building services
engineers will
need to know more
about the design
phase of a piece of
equipment, as well
as what happens to
the system during its
operating lifetime
In order to meet this target, the
industry needs to fundamentally
change its approach to the design and
use of energy consuming equipment.
Product manufacturers have achieved
a great deal through fine-tuning the
energy performance of individual
products, but more can and is being
done to address the carbon footprint of
whole system design.
With one building needing to be
refurbished every minute between
now and 2050 to reach our energy and
carbon reduction targets, we are on the
edge of a profound shift in our markets.
Building services engineers, equipment
suppliers and installers are facing a
deluge of new measures all aimed at
directing us towards the ‘cradle-tograve’
and ‘whole-system’ route – we
all need to prepare for them now and
make sure our clients are ready too.
See ‘Regulations’, page 26
l Nick SteveNSoN is new energy director
of Ideal Commercial Heating
www.cibsejournal.com April 2011 CIBSE Journal 23