Great expectations for CIBSE

Graham Manly, President of CIBSE will open the 2004 National Conference on 29 September and the event should get off to a great start when he introduces the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who will deliver the eagerly awaited keynote address.

King has a way of illustrating a complex issue such as climate change by using easily understood but telling examples of its effects. It was King who first broadcast the way that the Thames Barrier now has to be used on average six times a year compared to less than once a year in its first five years of operation after it was completed in 1983.

Another highlight of the conference will be Terry Wyatt’s presentation on ground source heat pumps – not a new technology but an under-appreciated solution for sustainable energy.

Perhaps one of the most interesting presentations will be by Ann Stevenson and Harry Schmitz of Arcadis about an autarkic climate control system in an office building in Holland based on the technique used by termites. It has long been known that termite hills provide an equable climate for the termites even with extreme outside temperatures. The challenge has been to replicate the technique in buildings.

The growth in PFI projects has meant that more attention is being paid to how a building will perform over its lifetime. Contractors and building designers are looking beyond the handover stage to the whole life cost of the building. Ian Ford of Balfour Beatty and David Arnold of Troup Bywaters & Anders in separate presentations will give useful insights into working with PFI.

There will be a case study on commercial green construction by Andrew Pettifer of Gifford and Partners. As funder, owner, occupier and designer of the building, the company will have a unique perspective of the challenges of bringing a sustainable design to fruition.

Initial monitoring of the building will take place in collaboration with the University of Nottingham School of the Built Environment. Design features include:

• Super-insulated breathing wall construction using blown insulation made from recycled newspaper.
• Night cooling through a low pressure mechanical ventilation system coupled to the floor slabs.
• An innovative heating and cooling system integrated into the raised access floor and served by a heat pump.

The huge construction project that is Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 will be the subject of a presentation by Simon James of Parsons Brinckerhoff on the terminal’s district cooling system. The central chilling plant incorporates ammonia as the refrigerant and open circuit cooling towers to maximise the coefficient of performance of the chillers. Twin compressors resulted in good part load performance and 11 kV motors avoided the cost and energy losses of transformers. A free cooling system and elevated return temperature were also employed.

To reduce the installed capacity of the chillers, thermal energy storage was used to meet the short duration peak demands. Chilled water was used in preference to ice storage giving a lower capital cost and higher system efficiency. The thermal energy store consists of an unpressurised 3600 m³ buried concrete tank. The tank is hydraulically directly connected to the chilled water system with pressurising pumps and throttle valves to control the flow of chilled water into the store.

New research into the performance of Savonius wind turbines by Ioannis Spanos and Les Duckers of Coventry University will show their viability. The Savonius is a vertical axis turbine. It has two scoops that catch the wind and turn the shaft. The model used for the research was modified to incorporate a Darrieus feature at the tips of the blades to augment the lift characteristics and hence improve performance.

There will be over 50 expert speakers and a full technical tour programme taking in some of the major building developments in the Docklands area, as well as a gala dinner in the Painted Hall at the newly-renovated Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich.

The two-day event takes place at the Britannia International Hotel, next to Canary Wharf, on 29-30 September. For more information and full programme details contact CIBSE Events on 020 8772 3660 or view www.cibse.org