Abstract

The climate change phenomenon is an ever-growing emergency driven by the emission of harmful anthropogenic gases from fossil fuel consumption. Its potential consequences, such as extreme weather and irreversible environmental impacts, have made it a focal point for political acts, targets, and regulations on a national and global scale. The operation of commercial buildings, in addition to the generation of the energy to which they consume, are identified as some of the highest contributing areas to these emissions. For university buildings, it is imperative that energy consumption is understood and addressed in order to protect the environment, reduce operational costs, meet government grant allocations, and continue to offer educational services to their students. This paper conducts an energy performance analysis of the Henry Cotton Building, part of the Liverpool John Moores University. The current energy consumption data is investigated using the techniques of energy benchmarking, Cumulative Sum of Differences and fabric assessment. The results indicated that both electricity and gas consumption sit within average recommended levels for similar buildings and could both be improved towards ‘good’ industry practice. Predicted consumptions were found to be similar to actual, highlighting no significant performance issues but highlighing no improvement. The fabric conditions were found to deviate significantly from modern industry standards. The study concludes with a review of potential renewable energy technology alternatives, to improve energy sustainability in the building by generation substitution. The analytic hierarchy process was utilised to compare the various solutions against each other and multiple criteria that impact successful implementation. The results identified solar as the most viable (score 78.5), followed by wind (score 66), geothermal (score 60) and biomass (score 50.5).

Keywords

Buildings, energy performance, sustainability, Analytic Hierarchy Process, renewable energy

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