Climate Change and Air Quality Progress Report 2022 to 2023
The council's operational estate
Operational buildings
Transition to cloud-based servers
We reported last year upon the replacement of over 260 of our traditional on-site computer servers with the Microsoft ‘Azure’ Cloud service. Moving these out of sites in Aylesbury, Amersham and Wycombe to more energy efficient servers based in the cloud saved 156 tonnes of carbon during the previous reporting period. This, and other benefits associated with the Microsoft Azure platform are estimated to be up to 98% more carbon efficient than on-premises solutions.
The Energy Transition refers to the switch from a centralised, fossil fuel based energy system to a distributed, renewables based energy system which is essential to reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The roll out of renewables at a range of scales, from rooftop solar to large scale wind parks in the North Sea, will play a crucial role in enabling the move to electrify heat (through eg. heat pumps) and transport.
The entire system will undergo enormous change over the next decades and Buckinghamshire Council works closely with for example our electricity distribution companies to enable this change.
Sustainable Energy Measures Feasibility and Assessment Study
The following council buildings have been subject to surveys by an external consultant to assess the feasibility of a wide range of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures:
- Aylesbury Day Opportunity Centre
- Aylesbury Family Time Service
- Burnham Day Opportunity Centre
- Castlefield Family Centre
- Chesham Library
- Hazelmere Library
The range of measures included:
- air source heat pump for domestic hot water and space heating
- fabric insulation
- improved zoning, controls and implementation of a building management system (BMS)
- solar PV and Battery installation
- lighting and controls
All measures were assessed with respect to their capital costs, projected energy, carbon emission and financial savings, payback periods, and abatement cost (in terms of pounds invested per tonne of CO2 saved.)
Initial conclusions suggest that solar PV may offer the optimum combination of carbon saving and cost savings.
Kingsbrook Secondary School Embodied & Operational Carbon Savings
Kingsbrook Secondary School opened to accept its first students for the 2022/23 academic year.
This new build represents a flagship project within Buckinghamshire and included state of the art principles and technology to minimise both the embodied and operation carbon emissions associated with the school.
Kingsbrook Secondary School
Kingsbrook Secondary School
The architects and contractors who designed and built Kingsbrook Secondary School were tasked by Buckinghamshire Council’s Commissioning Team, supported by colleagues from Strategic Infrastructure and the Housing Infrastructure Fund, with developing a building that would have low carbon credentials.
A wide range of measures were implemented including optimising the layout of the school for maximum solar gain (natural heating from the sun), the highest levels of insulation, leading edge energy efficiency controls and low carbon heating measures such as air source heat pumps. Additionally, design features such as re-engineering the structural frame to allow for a lighter steel construction and the use of pad, instead of pile foundations.
The results are impressive. The embodied carbon from the stage 3 design was 817 kgCO2e/m2, as compared to an average of 1000 kg/CO2e/m2 for a typical educational building.
The Energy Strategy deployed for minimising operational emissions for the building forecasts annual emissions of 103.1 tonnes CO2/annum versus a regulation baseline level of 173.0 tonnes CO2/annum, a saving of up to 69.9 tonnes CO2/annum. This could save as much as 1747.5 tonnes CO2 over the next 25 years.
The Built Environment and Embodied Carbon
“Embodied” or “Capital” carbon refers to all of the carbon (or equivalent GHG) emissions that arise during the fabrication, construction and/or manufacturing of a product or other infrastructure.
For example, a new building may require a significant amount of concrete to be poured to establish its foundations, but concrete production is a carbon intensive process, accounting for around 8% of global emissions. These emissions are known as “embodied”, as they result from the creation or “embodiment“ of the product or building.
Among the many measures at Kingsbrook Secondary School, reinforced concrete and traditional pre-cast concrete were replaced with hollow-core slabs, reducing the amount required and minimising the embodied carbon.