With the current turmoil around ever fluctuating energy costs creating an energy efficient Kent or London office space isn’t just about becoming “green” and improving sustainability although clearly this is an extremely important objective in the move towards net zero and to mitigate the effects of climate change. It’s also about reducing energy costs and making savings.
Energy Costs
Energy costs in the workplace has been a hot topic in recent months given that the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) report “Building The Case For Net Zero: Retrofitting Office Buildings” estimates the “UK’s existing non-domestic building stock is currently responsible for 23% of built environment operational carbon emissions” and “commercial offices in the UK account for circa 11% of energy consumption from non-domestic buildings… offices are currently the largest single consumers of electricity.”
The UKGBC go onto say that an average reduction in operational energy usage of 26% can be achieved with optimisation alone; 37% reduction can be realised through optimisation and a light retrofit and between 60-65% through optimisation and a deep retrofit.
According to the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) “Roughly 40% of carbon emissions come from the construction, operation, or maintenance of buildings. Heating, cooling, and lighting buildings – operational carbon – account for 28% of global emissions, with the remaining 11% attributable to embodied carbon.”
Energy Efficient Office Design and Refurbishment
Ensuring an energy efficient Kent or London office space comes starts with an energy efficient design which minimises energy consumption and environmental impact and also maximises staff comfort and productivity.
To ensure an office design can provide all of these benefits it must consider a range of features and ideas from architectural to technological. The key constituents of any energy efficient office design and refurbishment must include utilising natural light wherever possible, energy efficient lighting where natural light isn’t available; smart heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); the integration of appropriate energy saving technology, energy efficient equipment and power management. Below we outline just a few of the steps you can take to start to make your office space more energy efficient.
Take Advantage of Natural Light
On average lighting can account for up to 35% of electricity costs in an office and installing LED lighting can reduce lighting costs by as much as 70-80%.
It’s therefore vitally important to design the office layout by arranging workspaces to make the most of all available natural light. Desks should be strategically placed to take advantage of windows and skylights, where present.
Implement Energy Efficient Lighting
Where natural light isn’t available make sure all of your old traditional incandescent bulbs are replaced with LED lights.
While old-style traditional bulbs usually last around 750-2000 hours LED’s last between 50,000-100,000 hours and have an energy efficiency of around 80-90% compared to around 5% for traditional light bulbs.
Upgrade Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC)
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) “Cooling in the UK” paper published in 2021 found that “the largest energy consumption relating to cooling is found in the office sector which accounts for around half [51.2%] of the non-domestic energy consumption for cooling and humidification in the UK; most of this is private offices (accounting for 44.0% of total consumption).”
HVAC systems can be energy intensive especially if the system is old. Updating to a newer HVAC system designed with improved energy efficiency can help make significant energy savings.
It’s also important to carry out planned preventative maintenance on an HVAC system to ensure it is working efficiently. FacilitiesNet explains “Facilities in which proper HVAC maintenance is completed will use at least 15 to 20 percent less energy than those where systems are allowed to deteriorate.” They go onto say that “organizations that have implemented comprehensive maintenance programs find that their total costs can be as much as 50 percent lower than the costs for those organizations that continue maintain equipment reactively.”
Leverage Smart Building Management Technology
It’s important to leverage smart building management technology that allows you to monitor and analyse office energy consumption data to identify where energy inefficiencies are occurring. With energy consumption data, use can be fine-tuned and any inefficiencies can be eliminated.
It’s worth considering installing occupancy or motion sensors to ensure that lights are turned off out of hours as well as in areas which are unoccupied or not being used.
Installing a programmable thermostat allows for full control of an HVAC system so that it can be shut down or the temperature reduced when the office is empty. Reducing the set office temperature by 1°C can result in an 8% decrease in energy costs. Office space can also be divided into zones with individual HVAC controls allowing temperature to be adjusted based on occupancy and individual preferences.
To achieve maximum energy efficiency Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) can be used to make automatic changes based on real-time data which allows for ultimate HVAC energy efficiency usage. Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration News says an automatic HVAC optimisation control system can typically increase energy efficiency by an additional 10-25%.
Choose Energy Efficient Appliances
Offices contain numerous pieces of equipment from network servers to PCs, Macs, laptops and monitors to printers and photocopiers and kitchen equipment and even vending machines.
According to the Carbon Trust “office equipment is one of the biggest consumers of energy.”
It’s therefore vital to ensure that any equipment purchased for the office space including your office kitchen and break out areas has a high energy efficiency rating. Equipment with high energy efficiency ratings will have been designed to use the smallest amount of energy required to do the task required, consuming less energy and significantly reducing your office’s electricity consumption, potentially saving hundreds or thousands of pounds.
It’s also worth carrying out an equipment audit of your current equipment to see if any appliances are consuming more electricity than they should be and replacing old energy inefficient equipment that is costing you money in the long run.
Cut Down On Plug Loads
The New Buildings Institute (NBI) state that “Plug loads are one of the fastest growing sources of energy use in commercial buildings today. In offices, they account for 15-20 % of office electricity use. In offices that have already improved the efficiency of their lighting and HVAC systems, that number can be as much as 50%.”
The NBI goes onto say “Reducing plug loads is a primary challenge in the design and operation of an advanced building. It’s also an issue that can be addressed in any building. While a combination of no- and low-cost steps can be taken to minimize plug loads, there is also an important end-user component; education of occupants must play a key role in the control and ongoing management of plug loads.”
The NBI outlines a 5 step process to reduce plug load which includes identifying your equipment needs, focussing on those devices that use the most energy; identifying and removing any high energy equipment that isn’t needed; replacing equipment that’s failing or has reached the end of its lifespan with high energy efficient equivalents and turning off or powering down (using power management tools or built in software any equipment when it’s not in use. Part of the process if reducing equipment energy usage is the training and education of staff so that they understand why, where and how to power down.
Carrying out an equipment audit and eliminating unnecessary equipment can play an important role in office design and refurbishment.
JBH Refurbishments, Experts In Office Design and Refurbishment
JBH Refurbishments are a cat a and cat b fit out contractor and have over 30+ years experience in Kent and London office design, office refurbishments and fit outs. We understand what’s required to carry out an energy efficient office refurbishment and can provide the right expertise for your Kent or London office refurbishment. You can contact us via our contact page or by calling us on 0333 207 0339 today for a free on-site consultation.
