Lessons from Nature
It may be an unusual concept to look to nature for inspirations on improving energy performance in buildings, but bear with me. These are challenging times and the need to reduce energy consumption has never been greater. So, let’s look to nature for answers…
Demand driven response:
Generally, during hard times in nature, biological organisms don’t waste energy beyond their needs and reserves. This is because the needs of the organism are in perfect synergy with reserves of stored energy that it needs to survive.
Take ourselves for example; humans generally aren’t awake 24/7 with our hearts racing and loaded full of adrenaline just ‘in case’. Our nervous system instead processes inputs from the environment and our bodies respond. This can be defined as a demand driven response.
Conversely, buildings are generally disjointed in term of the primary sources of heating and cooling not being demand driven. To elaborate, typical UK buildings lack the nervous system (network) of sensory capability that nature has to dictate precisely how much energy to use relative to what is required. This can be a simple as only allowing a heating valve to open when a room is occupied. The technology exists, it simply isn’t being implemented in most buildings.
Demand driven responses aren’t a new concept, they have been around for billions of years. But as a species we have assumed that within our built environment, energy will always be in abundance. However, in recent years, that notion has come back to bite us. We are so wasteful with unsustainable energy that we are posing a danger to future generations and our existence as a species.
Is your building responsive?
So, the next time you are in a building, take a look around and ask yourself, is this building demand driven? Does your very presence in the building directly influence the consumption of energy by primary heating, ventilation and cooling plant? If not, then the building will be generally consuming 40% more energy than it needs.
If improving energy performance is important to you, contact Multiphase today. We believe we have the controls solutions to lower energy costs and reduce the environmental impact of your building.