Swansea University College of Engineering E-Magazine

A CA L L FOR ENG I NE E R S

SAV I NG T H E WOR L D I N T I ME S OF C R I S I S

A CA L L FOR ENG I NE E R S

SAV I NG T H E WOR L D I N T I ME S OF C R I S I S

AC T I V E C L A S S ROOM

B I P V ROOF

What areas? Our Active Buildings includes technology and expertise in all engineering disciplines including Chemical, Civil, Electronic and Electrical, Materials and Mechanical Engineering.

Buildings account for about 40% of the UK’s energy consumption

The Active Office is an office building accommodating around 30 members of staff. By generating and storing both heat and electricity, it has been calculated that the building will emit less than a third of the carbon that an equivalent traditional building would during a 60-year lifetime, saving an estimated 76 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. The energy consumed by each building is less than half the industry benchmark

How will this work by our engineers help make a difference in the wider world ? SPECIFIC is now supporting Pobl Group, Wales’ largest social housing provider, on a housing development of 16 homes in Neath, South Wales to apply the concept in housing. The team is also working with Transport for Wales to see how it could work on railway station shelters. Meanwhile, the SUNRISE project with our partners at IISc Bangalore are exploring how our knowledge can help to address global energy poverty, through partnerships in India and other countries. They have already installed some solar micro- grids in schools around Bengaluru where the distribution of power is very sporadic and power is not available in some of the schools during the day. The objective is to provide

In a world where we are urged to be socially responsible and to actively fight climate change, how can we do this when the global demand for energy is growing rapidly ? Buildings account for about 40% of the UK’s energy consumption and 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which should be an alert to engineers across the world that radical change is needed in the way buildings are designed and used. Sustainability is embedded into what we do here in Engineering and we are continuously developing new ideas and introducing new initiatives to work towards becoming a smarter, cleaner and greener organisation. The concept of Active Buildings was developed by Swansea University’s SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre. The roofs and walls of buildings are ‘activated’ by adding a

coating or cladding that can generate heat and electricity from the sun; these are combined with technologies in the building that can store the energy until it is needed. In 2016, Swansea University’s Active Classroom was constructed to demonstrate this idea using some experimental technologies. Later in 2018, the Active Office was constructed to show how the idea can be applied now, using technology that is already available on the market. By combining an integrated solar roof and battery storage with solar heat collection and storage, the buildings were both designed to generate more heat and electrical energy than they consume over an annual cycle. In its first year of operation the Active Classroom generated 1.5 times the energy it used. In its second year, when one of the rooms became an office space, it met its own energy needs.

for standard classroom or office buildings of the same size, even before the energy generated is taken into account.

The building will emit less than a third of the carbon that an equivalent traditional building would.

All of this work is underpinned by fundamental science in the labs at the Bay Campus, where researchers are developing the next generation of materials and renewable energy technologies that are low cost, easy to manufacture in volume and can be recycled or reused at the end of their life.

uninterrupted power supply and adequate lighting in the schools’ classrooms.

ENG I NE E R I NG AT SWANS E A UN I V E R S I T Y

ENG I NE E R I NG AT SWANS E A UN I V E R S I T Y

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