The role Of the University

The campuses of the future must be highly connected, flexible and sustainable. Accomplishing the first two design objectives while delivering the third will be a tremendous challenge. These days campuses (as with nearly all buildings) must approach a near zero carbon standard of performance.

A zero carbon built environment is a challenge faced by the whole of society. However, universities do not just provide courses for practical policy and industry driven outputs but also uphold society’s ideals, vision and potential. Higher education provides the opportunity for people to meet and interact with the brightest minds to form long-term links and ambitions in environments that value knowledge and its use for the greater good.

Society values them for this and should provide universities with the best access to technology and the research environments needed to make progress. The reality of climate change makes such progress all the more urgent.

For low carbon sustainable communities the university campus must become the laboratory for this future. Many exemplar buildings are constructed on campuses and the universities rightly pride themselves on them. It is time to go beyond this. Individual buildings are not a community; a campus is.

Universities must be live laboratories for the transition to a low carbon sustainable future. They need not only to educate, but to demonstrate the changes needed along the entire building supply chain. Higher education creates and trains the industry’s decision makers and practitioners. What they learn shapes the built environment for the decades that follow. This means that university ambitions must precede the country’s ambitions. The timelines to low carbon are clear to 2050 and guidance is available to help demonstrate how this might be achieved¹ but our view is that those for universities should be a decade shorter to allow time for two to three cycles of graduates to leave and enter the world of work and ‘life’.

In 2011, Royal Academy of Engineering research proposed a programme for university centres of excellence in sustainable building. This suggested that £30 million seed funding over five years would deliver cumulative savings in excess of £1 billion by 2030.²

What are the Carbon Requirements for Campuses?

The carbon footprint for universities is massive and projected to increase. Student populations have increased by a factor of five over the past 30 years and this number is likely to continue growing. UK university estates’ annual turnover is £27 billion, equivalent to the fourth largest FTSE company. Universities occupy 26 million sqm of space (more than 2.5 times the government’s estate), with annual energy costs of ~£200 million.³ Recent trends in academic buildings have concentrated on improving facilities rather increasing built area, through a combination of infilling, replacement and refurbishment. All of these offer a tremendous opportunity to improve energy performance, sometimes at little additional capital cost.

Universities at the Vanguard

The future campus will need to be progressively more low energy and low carbon. The UK government, in response to the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), has required that universities achieve carbon reduction targets for their campuses of 43% below 2005 (equivalent to 34% below 1990) by 2020 and 83% below 2005 figures by 2050 (equivalent to 80% below 1990).

Some suggest these are too slow for the sector, which must lead the way and demonstrate knowledge about how to deliver such results across the nation by the 2050 deadline. This view is supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) in the carbon reduction target and the 2008 strategy for higher education in England.⁴

These are large steps and in line with the whole built environment targets. Key is the need for universities to present and guide the rest of society towards how such figures might be achieved – so universities should consider higher targets.

Recent performance is not greatly encouraging – electricity use on on a per sqm basis has stayed largely constant since 2008, although the corresponding carbon per sqm dropped, owing to a reduction in the grid carbon intensity. Heating (non-electrical) use per sqm has dropped in the period and the corresponding carbon has reduced too. However, overall, most of the carbon reduction appears to be associated with the grid carbon intensity reduction. This analysis suggests that any actual electrical load reduction through improved management and lower energy systems is being offset by increased energy demand per sqm. Refer to Part 4 for further discussion on building performance in use.

Figure 3.11 Carbon emissions in English higher education institutions (HEIs), 2008–2013 compared with carbon targets to 2050

This shows the estate carbon pre square metre against the projected HEFCE targets from 2005 to 2050, and the HEFCE targets if they are brought forward by 10 years as suggested. The targets allow for estate growth, estimated from growth in the period 2008 to 2013. This shows how significant improvements in carbon intensity would need to be made to achieve the targets, likely including electricity and heating demand reduction as well as gid decarbonisation. The overall reduction in carbon of the current HE building stock is caused by the reducing grid carbon density.

Display Energy Certificate Targets

Display energy certificate (DEC) targets provide a neat illustration of this. It is that the 2013 average university DEC rating (using the CIBSE University Campus benchmark) is 97 (or a high ‘D’) Only 30% of DECs are currently C or better, and under 1% of DECs are currently A. Target average DEC scores to achieve the 2050 trajectory would be:

• 2017 – 73 (high ‘C’)
• 2020 – 58 (mid ‘C’)
• 2050 – 14 (mid ‘A’)

Current sector performance in DECs is discussed further in Part 4.

We identify three approaches to achieving these new targets:

1. Reduce local and distributed energy supply carbon impacts.
2. Establish ways to fix carbon reductions once established through good management and cultures.
3. Follow progressive initiatives to drive down loads from small power devices, particularly relating to research (which could be challenging).

Innovation

As research institutions, many universities are keen to explore how they can embrace innovation in their estate. This can include novel environmental approaches – in some instances in collaboration with academic departments, as illustrated in the following examples.

Example
Sustainability Hub Home Farm, Keele University⁵

The Hub supports the development of sustainability both within and beyond the higher education sector. Sustainability and Green Technology, It is home to the MSc Environmental and provides consultancy work to industrial partners, puts on continuous professional development (CPD) activities and lectures, welcomes hundreds through the doors every year for training and conferences, and to find out about new developments in sustainability research.

Figure 3.12 Sustainability Hub, Home Farm, Keele University

Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Design

Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh⁷ This is one of four such Centres established at UK universities in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering which, together, form a national network to demonstrate and exchange best practice in teaching and research for the sustainable built environment.

Example
Creative Energy Homes University of Nottingham Architecture Department⁹

Green Close is a street of ecohouses, constructed in partnership with industry, and run by the University’s Department of Architecture and Built Environment (see Figure 3.8). The Department has built a series of houses which investigate different technologies including micro smart grids, energy storage and demand site management – the ‘Creative Energy Homes’.

Example
Energy Technologies Building University of Nottingham⁸

This building is home to research into: renewable energy using a biofuel combined heat and power (CHP); low energy lighting and intelligent controls; heat recovery ventilation with earth tube supply; responsible material selection including recycled materials to the concrete frame; and hydrogen production and filling stations with electric car charging points.

Figure 3.13 Energy Technologies Building, University of Nottingham

Figure 3.14 Creative Energy Homes, University of Nottingham Architecture Department

Example
Urban Sciences Building University of Newcastle

This is a new building incorporating test bed strategies, including energy scavenging and storage technologies, building micro-metering and direct current test beds linked to PV panels avoiding losses incurred by DC-AC inverters. All of these can be integrated into research programmes and key items can be easily replaced as technologies evolve.

Figure 3.15 Urban Sciences Building, University of Newcastle

For energy-focused design teams the possibilities inherent in working with a professional and engaged client such as a university are rewarding. Items key to developing successful and ever-improving environmental performance from projects are listed below:

1. Agree the environmental aspirations at the outset.
2. Develop achievable targets through the design process.
3. Measure results in use.
4. Form an ongoing design partnership/work with the same design team over multiple buildings.
5. Demand every building to be better than the last.
6. Be consistent and persistent in the demands.
7. Do not add too many innovations at once – it confuses results.
8. Utilise controlled innovation – if something works do it again – but better.

Continuous Controlled Innovation

A prime UK example of this approach is at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which has worked steadily for 20 years towards energy and carbon reduction.

The building services engineers Fulcrum worked on five buildings on the expanding campus in the 1990s culminating in the Elizabeth Fry building, which achieved building performance unsurpassed over the following decade. The designers learned that it was important to take clients to visit exemplars which pushed the boundaries, both in the UK and Europe, allowing the client to question and probe the users unhindered. This way the clients learned what was possible and could understand what to ask for and why design features were being suggested. They condensed these key lessons into a brief against which the buildings could be judged. In this way, both designers and client could agree what was possible.

A visit to Scandinavia was used to explore the appropriate appointment of consultants. As a result, responsibility for delivering detailed advice on fabric thermal performance was uniquely placed within the building services engineers’ fee agreement. The decision to eliminate distributed heating and cooling systems to increase simplicity within Elizabeth Fry also came from this visit. It was possible to convince the engineers, and it allowed the client to give their informed consent to a design focusing on a fabric thermal store solution and high levels of fresh air ventilation and heat recovery.

Product manufacturers were engaged as part of the early stages, with meetings focused entirely on low energy and high comfort in a holistic way. The designers insisted on a process of leaving things out rather than adding new systems in, covering everything from orientation, window size and performance to structural integration of services.

As a result, the fabric was designed first, with specialist assistance on thermal detailing delivered to near PassivHaus standards and comfort through a ventilated concrete slab. The building was visited by the PROBE¹⁰ (see page 124) team after two years of operation to explore its performance in detail, both from the perception of the occupants’ professional support and energy consumption figures. It was revisited 12 years later to compare these results. In both cases, results were publically published – a step that should be required nationally of all buildings that claim exemplar status. These results showed that energy use had increased 20% following refurbishment with increased lighting and open-plan occupancy. Basic airtightness issues that were identified a decade earlier remained.

Buildings such as Elizabeth Fry demonstrate why universities emphasise performance as well as efficient design. As owner-occupiers, the client had a vested interest not only in the sustainable design and construction but in the reduced costs that came with it. The Manchester School of Art, later in this section, is another good example of this approach.

Engineer-Out the Engineers

The Elizabeth Fry building offers a caution against the tendency to over-design. Sustainability must be simple. Building services often act as a risk-mitigation exercise, designing for the worst case plus a safety margin rather than for the averages and designing the building to even out the peaks. It is extremely easy for design to tend towards complexity and it should be the role of a nominated member of the team to actively challenge decisions.

Natural ventilation solutions are particular culprits here and all those involved need proper consultation; simple conflicts such as windows being closed because of noise, clashing with window blinds or security concerns can destroy an apparently simple strategy. The response of motorising and adding sensors can appear logical but simply adds complexity and further frustrations for users and issues for maintenance. Challenging such ideas must be done early in the design process and a vigilant eye kept, ensuring such ideas do not creep in later under the guise of cost-saving.

Passive Design

Well-designed buildings that rely on passive measures for environmental control are generally more popular with their occupants and in many instances use less energy than their mechanically conditioned counterparts. In particular, the academic cellular office model and the low occupancy often found in the sector are well suited to the demand control offered by natural ventilation. Control of building form, careful façade design, use of thermal mass and control of internal gains are all key to ensuring good passive performance; it must not be forgotten that ventilation is required in winter as well as in summer, and the façade design must ensure that draughts are not an issue.

Figures 3.16 and 3.17 The Forum, University of Exeter, WilkinsonEyre

Passive buildings – with appropriate user training where necessary – can also be more resilient to changes in use, and are generally easier and cheaper to operate.

Where passive performance alone is not adequate – for instance in the centre of a city or where the building form or use make it impractical – mixed mode operation is often a good solution, with mechanical assistance required when it is particularly warm or cold, or in selected areas only.

Large atria and streets – popular in universities such as Exeter and Nottingham Trent – can be designed to capture passive solar gain in winter, particularly if the energy can be stored in surfaces during the season; whereas atria and streets can help to cool spaces in summertime when they are in shade. It should be noted that the challenge in many modern buildings is the avoidance of overheating rather than dealing with issues of heat loss in winter.

University buildings present particular challenges with regard to environmental performance which require particular attention during the design stage:

• Low utilisation and unusual occupancy patterns: how can we avoid wasting energy by conditioning unoccupied spaces yet ensure that they are comfortable when required?
• Seasonal use: buildings are principally designed for students, academics and researchers, yet conference and summer courses provide significant income and there are obvious differences in the requirements of students through the academic year. How can facilities cater equally for these different uses without simply over-providing?
• Rapid turnover of occupants: whether viewed on an annual, weekly, daily or hourly basis, buildings and spaces often have transient occupancies. It is often not clear who has ownership of spaces and their control. How can universities avoid the ‘default to on’ and engage such a wide range of occupants in environmentally sensitive operation of their spaces?
• Continually evolving funding sources and methods of teaching, learning, living and research: how can estates accommodate future demands that are unknown?

Renewables and Occupancy

Solar low carbon sources of energy must be collected and the area required for this purpose must be protected from shade. Wind energy requires safe exposure to wind and all are challenging when the scale of energy need is considered in the context of individual buildings.

This makes energy efficiency and accurate prediction of energy demand a top priority in correct briefing. The question of how many people will be where, when and doing what must be answered clearly and accurately.

Renewables in the form of biomass (in whatever form) requires knowledgeable design and operation, which is generally outside the scope of typical facilities manager experience and requires specialist input and maintenance. Biomass also requires storage and delivery, and a reliable source of fuel, or commonly they are provided with duplicate gas as back-up. Sadly, in many cases the back-up takes over as the primary source due to its relative simplicity and reliability. This totally undermines the purpose and it is vital that client buy-in is achieved and the cost of operation includes skilled operation and maintenance.

To avoid such overdesign the whole team should be involved with the brief preparation. Occupancy in particular should be discussed openly with the implications recorded and incorporated. It is perhaps worth emphasising that occupancy when designing for low energy should be the form of an occupancy profile over time, ideally for each room.

These should also indicate anticipated fluctuations over the year. This is of particular importance on university buildings, as their occupancy can vary enormously and running for maximum occupancy in a holiday will lead to much waste.

Longevity

For a building to be truly sustainable, it must have a long life. In rapidly changing times, this means that it should be easily adaptable to cater for future uses, many of which may not exist at this time. Who could have foreseen the impact that mobile IT devices would have on the lives of students today – and how this has affected the way in which our buildings function? The IT revolution is in turn triggering new ways of accessing information – while MOOCs have not had the impact which some expected, there is no doubt that there is a slow move towards blended learning – whether this is formalised or not. Student expectations are higher than ever, and in an increasingly global market this change is likely to take place at an increasing rate.

Buildings – and the spaces between them – must be designed to allow for future developments; in the absence of a crystal ball to predict future subject matter and curriculum delivery methods, it is vital that many buildings will need to avoid being bespoke to a particular department or group, and that a ‘loose fit’ strategy must be followed, with the ability to change layouts and uses, spare capacity in services installations and additional space for future plant enhancements.

One key aspect of building longevity is to ensure resilience to the effects of climate change. Setting aside the cooling effects of possible changes to the Atlantic Jetstream and Gulf Stream, climate change is of course expected to result in a general increase in global temperatures combined with more extreme weather events. If buildings are designed appropriately – including attention to façades, use of natural ventilation and other passive measures such as thermal mass – then there is no reason why this should not be achievable in most cases.

In some cases, for instance in Central London or in buildings with high heat gains, this resilience may not be achievable, and in this case the mechanical systems should be designed to allow simple upgrading to respond to changes in use or climate.

Estates and Buildings

In many universities, the buildings form part of campus developments. These offer great opportunities to ensure that the relationships between buildings are optimised, providing useful external spaces and appropriate connectivity. Buildings with similar functions can be grouped together to encourage collaboration and, if suitably designed, can allow departments to ‘flex’ and promote interdisciplinary working. Centralised timetabling of spaces – which is often used to improve space utilisation – can also increase the chance of interaction between academics and students, particularly from different subject areas; the ‘water cooler moments’ that often generate the most stimulating ideas. Connectivity for future campuses does not only apply to people and information: an additional benefit of grouping buildings together is that they provide opportunities to reduce energy use and carbon emissions through enhanced plant efficiency.

There has been a move in recent years towards more centralised energy systems, reversing the trend of the previous two or three decades. New and improved technologies in energy production and distribution, combined with increased energy costs and environmental awareness, have made such installations commonplace. For instance, there was an increase in the number of CHP installations in UK universities of over 120% between 2009 and 2014, now they now account for over 13% of total energy consumption.

District energy systems are at their most powerful when a variety of buildings are located in close proximity to each other, and where different load profiles and characteristics can enable total plant capacity to be reduced; in some instances, waste heat from buildings – such as IT server rooms and load-intensive areas – can be reused in other spaces. Ground source heat pumps can enhance performance further by storing energy in the ground on a seasonal basis. Lastly, centralised systems offer great opportunities to improve resilience, as well as the ability to upgrade and change plant as technologies change, evolve and improve, rather than having to deal with each building on a piecemeal basis.

What about the Role of Heating and Cooling Networks?

There is tremendous potential for improved efficiency through heat networks and long-term heat storage. It has also been noted that factors such as climate change, increases in IT loads and highly glazed designs are all increasing the need for cooling solutions. We must rethink how we can maximise the efficiency of our networks to deliver both heating and cooling.

Consider that heating and cooling are both essentially energy management. You move heat away from places that need cooling towards places that need heating. Treating heat as a resource across a campus can lead to tremendous energy savings overall.

A good example of this working in practice is Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands. It has a heat and cold storage (Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage – or ATES) installation, which is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. The ATES has been executed with two central rings: a cold ring and a warm ring. 70% of the TU/e campus is connected to the ATES network, which allows buildings to exchange heating and cooling with the ground as needed throughout the year.

Figure 3.18 Central university library and the Faculty of Mathematics & Computer Science (W&I) by Ector Hoogstad Acthitecten - part of the Compact Campus 2020 masterplan for Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

The buildings forming part of the Campus 2020 projects are fully heated by means of the ATES in combination with a heat pump and low-temperature heating (in these buildings no natural gas is used for the heating). Likewise, the cooling of the buildings (high-temperature cooling) is realised by the ATES. There are currently 32 boreholes serving the network, soon to be extended to 48 (24 cold and 24 hot wells). Water flow is 2000 m³/h now extending to 3000 m³/h in final format with a design heating/cooling capacity of 25MW.

By storing heat and cold in the soil, TU/e annually saves some two million kWh of electricity and more than 300,000 cubic metres of gas.

Both research and practice (e.g. TU/e) have shown that Cold Water Heat Networks (CWHN) offer significant benefits. University campuses are well suited to demonstrate these benefits, such as the forthcoming Balanced Energy Network (BEN) project at London South Bank University (LSBU). We are working to demonstrate this heat-sharing technology here in the UK, further linking in demand management of electricity and carbon capture and storage from high temperature fuel cells.

This would be a paradigm shift for how universities manage their heating, cooling and electrical loads. The very nature of estates management stands to change. The role becomes a constant monitoring of need and shuffling of temperature into and out of energy stores. Campus planning could be shaped around a CWHN. This is highly appealing to universities, which have a large mixture of old and new stock. By careful planning, matching new build with appropriate refurbishment, they can begin to balance the future heating and cooling demands and reduce the total need. Buildings could be strategically located to share heating Contextual factors and cooling demand, using borehole storage and waste heat recovery.

Figure 3.19 Higher education estate carbon management