Technology Assessment for Radically Improving the Built Asset baSE (TARBASE)

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor PFG Banfill
Sch of the Built Environment
Heriot-Watt University

Standard

EPSRC

01 July 2004

31 March 2009

57 months

£1,421,635

Energy

Scotland

Infrastructure and Environment -- Process Environment and Sustainability

Professor PFG Banfill, Sch of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University

Professor T Jackson, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey
Dr L Shao, Construction Management and Engineering, University of Reading

Mr A Peacock, Heriot-Watt University

Project Contact, BSRIA Limited
Project Contact, Royal Institute of British Architects
Project Contact, University of Ulster
Project Contact, New College Lanarkshire
Project Contact, The Scottish Government
Project Contact, Building Research Establishment (BRE) Limited

The aim of the project described in this proposal is to deliver technological solutions which will allow a radical, visible, step change input to policies and programmes designed to reduce the carbon footprint of the UK building stock. To achieve the Carbon Vision target of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 requires radical action to be taken on the UK's existing built assets, since at least 75% of the building stock that will be present in 2030 is already in existence. The unique feature of this consortium project is its focus on existing buildings. It will assess the potential of present and future technologies available for carbon intensity reduction under three headings - (i) building fabric and installed HVAC, (ii) energy production and storage, and (iii) end-use equipment. The worth, by direct and embodied carbon reduction and by cost, of each technological intervention will be estimated for each of a set of generically representative types ofboth domestic and non-domestic buildings, so that when they are applied to those buildings shown by surveys to be dominant in the existing built asset base, the maximum impact on overall carbon emissions will result. Investigating user perceptions of these best technologies, evaluating regulatory constraints and developing demonstration designs for the generic building types will permit policies and marketing strategies for adoption of these radical solutions to be developed so that the CarbonVision target can be reached

01/01/07