Prefabrication – the key to accelerating decarbonisation?
Decarbonising the UK’s school estate will be essential to keep us on track with our net zero commitment. Developing pre-engineered, prefabricated heating solutions could provide the answer, says Stephen Hart, Director of Integrated Solutions at Baxi.
With the educational estate accounting for 36% of total UK public sector building emissions , supporting the decarbonisation of existing schools will be vital for meeting our 2050 net zero target. Heating is usually the largest and most expensive energy user in schools, making this service a natural target for energy, carbon and cost savings. But the scale of retrofit required nationally, the limited window of time to carry out works, and the associated costs can make decarbonisation feel daunting for school estates managers. One approach that could help overcome these challenges is prefabrication.
The background
England alone is home to more than 24,000 schools (excluding nurseries) , most of which are heated by gas-fired boilers or, in older schools not connected to the gas grid, by oil or even coal-fired boilers. Improving the efficiency of the heating system will simultaneously reduce energy demand within the school building, make it more environmentally sustainable and help schools to stretch their tight budgets.
However, upgrading the heating system is often considered only to be feasible when the site doesn’t require a continuous hot water or heating supply for an extended period. This currently means that any major refurbishment projects are typically squeezed into the school summer shutdown period.
An added concern is that decarbonisation can sometimes be perceived as risky, expensive and funding dependent.
In short, schools need a rapid, risk free, more affordable solution to facilitate decarbonisation. So, what role can prefabricated heating solutions play?
Pre-engineering
Prefabricated heating systems are rising in popularity due to their ability to meet the more rigorous performance targets for heating and hot water provision more efficiently, effectively and predictably. To date, off-site heating solutions manufactured by specialists such as Baxi Packaged Solutions have proved particularly effective at resolving design and installation challenges in individual school buildings. However, this is to ignore a central benefit of prefabrication: standardisation.
Through the prefabrication process, we have the ability to pre-engineer heating solutions that can be produced and installed faster through standardisation and customised to meet the output requirement of the building.
Thinking inside the box
Let’s consider how a prefabricated solution might help support school estates managers with decarbonising their existing school stock. One option might be to replace existing boilers in schools with a more efficient, lower carbon hybrid system using a prefabricated, standardised energy centre.
A hybrid heat pump solution is nearly always a fast, efficient and affordable answer as even a modestly sized heat pump will enable a large portion of the heat in the building to be decarbonised. As such, a hybrid system can be a more commercially and technically viable solution for school projects, delivering immediate sustainability improvements while overcoming key challenges such as budget and risk.
Each packaged energy centre would contain a combination of plant and accessory modules in a standardised layout connected to external mono-block air to water heat pumps or evaporators connected to split system heat pumps within the energy centre. These might include a boiler cascade kit, buffer vessels, control panel and field instrumentation, circulating pumps and pipework, as well as accessories such as air/dirt separators, a dosing pot, expansion vessels and a plate heat exchanger for hydraulic separation. The capacity can be easily adjusted and sized to meet the load and output requirements of the different school buildings.
The various modules and components are then brought together by a configurable controller, such as Baxi’s CHVAC Manager, which essentially creates from the standardised energy centre a configurable, integrated heating solution for the various applicable system designs.
Supporting decarbonisation
How could this approach help schools and multi-academy trusts (MATs) looking to decarbonise heat in their buildings? High on the list are the time savings. Prefabricated energy centres are plug-and-play systems, pre-wired and factory tested for rapid, simple connection and preassembled in sections or as a single lift for easy placement in the school grounds. On-site labour and time are hugely reduced, minimising disruption, which in turn removes the need to restrict larger heating system refurbishments to the summer holiday period.
This offers the opportunity to scale up decarbonisation across the school estate, with increased standardisation ultimately leading to lower costs. What’s more, by pre-engineering the solution, production, delivery lead time and waste are reduced, maximising efficiency.
Quality assurance is also high. The energy centres are manufactured to specification in a factory environment, using specialist machinery and under improved control procedures. School estates managers can therefore be assured of a build of the highest quality and precision that will perform as designed. Pre-testing and commissioning also help eliminate any perceived risk factor relating to decarbonisation.
Finally, with a prefabricated solution like this, there is one point of contact for the whole system. This hugely reduces the potential for delay, helping to keep the project on schedule and avoiding any last-minute hitches due to product availability. The process also enables just-in-time delivery, removing the need to store equipment on site and simplifying site management.
Meeting net zero
The education sector has a unique opportunity to support net zero, influencing and informing future generations. But to be truly sustainable in their operations and lead by example, schools and MATs also need practical solutions to improve the energy performance of their buildings and heating systems.
Prefabrication offers a solution to decarbonising schools and the core challenges of time, scale, affordability and risk. At Baxi, we look forward to supporting the education sector with our specialist end-to-end prefabrication service, from design to testing and commissioning to maintenance. It’s time to take a fresh look at prefab.
A version of this article first appeared in EiBI magazine.
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