Office Block Energy Audit

Project Overview

BEM Services were assigned to review the energy usage for a site by a London Borough Council so that plans could be made to reduce the energy usage and thus assist towards the Council’s aim of Net Zero Carbon.

The site contains a large three-storey office block from where the council coroner’s office work from, this building can hold up to 250 office workers. It also included a small café area, changing rooms and shower facilities.

Project Scope and Delivery

Our scope was very wide, and we were asked to look at all options available, including improving the building fabric. We spent a full day completing a thorough survey of the building and we found several items of interest:

1. There were two gas boilers
2. There were twelve independent air conditioning systems
3. The roof had very poor insulation
4. Most of the windows were single glazed
5. Air conditioning was installed in rooms with radiators with no clear control of temperature set points.
6. Some areas were poorly ventilated.

Options

From this survey we highlighted to the client several opportunities that could help reduce the buildings energy usage and from this we agreed with the client to concentrate on the five most likely to provide good savings. This ranged from the simplest and least expensive to the more complex and costly.  The five options were:

1. Change the set points of the heating/ improve controls
2. Install roof insulation
3. Replace windows
4. Install cascade heat pump system
5. Install a whole new heating system with Air Source Heat Pump

Detailed Analysis

By using thermal modelling software, we were able to create a working simulation of the building and this was cross referenced with actual energy usage readings for the past two years to ensure that the model closely reflected actual energy usage. This was then used as a baseline to measure the options against. The software measured carbon emissions as well as heat losses/ gains.