Paper Conference

Proceedings of BSO Conference 2012: 1st Conference of IBPSA-England

     

Developing Strategies to Achieve Zero Carbon in a Food Factory

Jeremy Owen, Dr Mahroo Eftekhari

Abstract: The Government has set a target to achieve zero carbon non domestic buildings by 2019. Currently all new non-domestic buildings are assessed using Part L2A of the Building Regulations, to establish the carbon emissions emitted from the building. This research will investigate the feasibility of achieving zero carbon emission in the existing food factories that do not comply with the Part L of Building Regulations. In order to establish the energy benchmarks, an existing food factory built in 2003 was used as a case study. This building currently uses 856 MWh of energy and emits 280 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere per year. Simulations were carried out to compare and identify suitable renewable systems that would be most suitable for these types of buildings. Since the main energy usage in the food factories are for heating and cooling, the simulation results have identified several low and zero energy systems that can greatly offset the carbon emissions. Interviews show that cost is the main driving factor in the food manufacturing industry and the target of zero carbon building targets by 2019 set by Government in the current economic condition is very ambitious.
Pages: 394 - 400
Paper:
bso2012_6B1