Hello, welcome and thanks for listening to Carbon Climates, an energy podcast dedicated
to discussing all things energy, carbon and sustainability while pointing out what's
getting hot, aside from our planet.
I'm your host Aine and today I'm joined with my Carbon Climate co-host and boss Alan,
who I'll be introducing shortly.
Alan, how has your week been and can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thank you for having me on the show, Enya, and it's been quite busy so I'm getting ready
to go on holiday for the week so I'm being tortured all week with people trying to get
things done.
So about me then, so I'm the director of BPP, I've been involved in building services for
about close to 40 years.
Wow.
And I've been in the Coalwell Group for about 27 years and the past six of that I've been
the director of BPP, which is a sustainability company with a bit of energy and sustainability.
It's kind of a bit about me.
Nice, nice.
And so yeah, you said that and see when you were at school, I know maybe around like GCSE
time or maybe like around the 14, 15 year olds, your 14 or 15 year old self, did you
ever like envisage yourself in the sector where you are now?
The sector, because the sector I first went into was building services and building services
can be a hidden sector.
I didn't think it would be an engineer because you always liked engineering, you always liked
mathematics and like discovering things and it's kind of naturally gravitated towards
that sort of job.
I first got into building services, I didn't really know what it was because it was all
pipes and lights and hidden things and it led a whole new world of discovery of things
that are hidden behind where it works and that led on to the interest in energy and
I wanted to know that could actually make a difference in the world.
There's a whole hidden world and I became fascinated with it.
Okay, well as you just said, so BPP, we at BPP are sustainability engineers and our primary
role is to act as energy assessors for buildings during construction and usually they can just
be existing as well.
So we do this by usually talking to the client and understand what they want to have designed
for the building, so it goes down to the heating, hot water and ventilation, types of walls,
windows etc. the list goes on.
Once we have this information we then input it into a specialist software and this gives
a carbon score or a building emission rate against the calculated target score or target
emission rate, essentially how much carbon the building is being emitted.
For domestic softwares this is shown through SAP calculations and for non-domestic softwares
this is shown through Bregos and these softwares also produce an EPC rating which is an energy
performance rating.
I go into more detail about this in episode one of the podcast but I just wanted to recap
and summarise this as we'll focus somewhere like tip toe around these subjects today.
So the scores I've previously mentioned, the BER, the building emission rate and TER, they
are able to fluctuate depending on what type of technology, equipment and constructions
the buildings are designed to.
So this could be the type of boiler, amount of insulation in the window, or whether the
window of insulation in the wall or whether the window is double glazed or triple glazed
or if there are any renewable technologies installed.
So Alan, the energy sector is constantly evolving with these different renewable technologies,
energy efficiency methods etc but what have been the major changes you have witnessed
with regards to what we've just talked about?
It's an interesting question and it's probably important to understand that when you look
at a regular or a part F or a building regulation calculation or an EPC or a real life calculation
they're all different and they mean different things and what you're seeing is the emergence
of people being more aware of what they actually mean.
We put in some perspective a building control calculation is a comparison with a theoretical
benchmark that's used as the first sort of experiment with the regulations to sort of
come up with some way of creating is my building good enough, is it not good enough?
An EPC is a theoretical comparison with a standard reference building.
So it's how you compare to a certain building, you're not being compared against a benchmark
building.
In a real life it's what people really are starting to get into for it.
So what you're seeing is that you're seeing a progression of how people think of energy
and tackle energy.
So you have, you know when building regulations first sort of came in in around mid 2000s
you would have had things like borders all of a sudden couldn't be sold because they
weren't efficient enough.
Yeah.
And people sort of thinking about that because before that they were thinking about well
this is a very sturdy border, it's very robust, it'll last 50 or 60 years but it's not very
efficient and then people sort of thinking about that and you just find people selling
borders getting quite upset that they couldn't sell the borders anymore.
And as the progressions move forward so heating, borders, ventilation started getting looked
at in a lot more detail.
You had lighting starting to become a bit more detailed and the progression is going
further and further into the fabric of a building.
So you'd have the values, the windows, the glazing, the orientation of it.
That has more focus because it's almost like the services are being squeezed as much as
they can.
That's where we're going.
So you see that progression coming into it.
You also see more importance put on to some of the badges you get like how much you improve
over a brickle calculation or how much you have an EPCA.
And it's coming from different sources.
So firstly it came from the regulations themselves force people to make a change.
You then have planning influences where some planning councils will say in order to build
in this area you have to have a certain value.
We're now seeing it progressing more with financial institutions saying that we will
not invest in a building or invest in a development without you having certain sustainable goals.
And a lot of that's from public pressure and public awareness.
So it's becoming higher and then the public awareness which is feeding through in a very
odd way.
So it's saying it's more awareness I think on that.
That's brilliant to see.
And even what you're saying there about more awareness, I'm even finding when we're talking
to different people in the design team, the likes of when we're talking to the architects,
we're discussing U-values which is measure of heat loss through the wall.
I remember at the start it used to be this U-value, yes we're going to give you this
figure.
But then we actually started like, okay actually how's that achieved?
How much insulation is that in?
Is that in the wall?
Or we didn't take account for bridging the steel, the timber frame construction.
And I felt like this is starting to be looked at more because U-values are getting tighter
and just people are understanding what exactly that means.
Yes, I would agree with that.
And again, it's because of the progress of sustainability through the services and the
fabric that because the services are being reduced so much, there's less heat loss in
a building.
And then you're finding that things like the thermal bridges and the way that the wall
is constructed that in the past may have had a small change on the U-value, now it becomes
quite a dominant change on the U-value.
So to squeeze that last bit out of heat retention, you have to look at those areas and that's
becoming more and more of a focus for design things like that.
Yeah, it's really great to see.
It's really good to see.
Well, definitely just from your previous explanations there, you have a vast majority, vast pile
of knowledge.
Did you do any particular training to get that, all the energy accreditations you have
under your belt?
Or is there a particular route you would recommend for people to go down to get to the point
where you're at today?
That's a good question because energy assessment sustainability is relatively new.
It has always been about, but it's relatively new compared to other professions like the
sort of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or architectural engineering,
it's going to go back sort of centuries.
So I would say be curious.
So the thing that kind of drives me and has driven me is to do with the curiosity of how
things actually perform in real life.
So the one thing you always have to be aware of is whatever you're assessing, whatever
you're doing, what is the real life scenario and what is happening in real life?
And that's kind of what drives a lot of the experience and practical knowledge.
So a lot of it is actually common sense.
So you develop an awareness of common sense.
Right, that's not qualifications, that's just being aware of how things react in real life.
What's the consequence of doing something or not the consequence of doing something?
So you need that as your core starting point and you build off that.
Then there's formal qualifications.
You can have, you know, there are good mathematics, you can come from a geography background or
mathematics or an engineering background.
It doesn't really matter as long as you've got that core kind of sense of curiosity about
the world around you and perhaps a concern about sustainability.
So the formality of it, there's a couple of routes.
There's sustainable assessment, which forms into it as well as things like the BRAEM assessors
now, which is formal routes through the BRE.
There are then formal routes to energy assessment accreditation.
So you need that to do an EPC.
And in order to achieve that, that would be like the CIBSA or Realmhurst or something
like that can offer that accreditation.
But in order to have that, you would probably have to have a degree and a master's degree
off the back of that.
So that's kind of where that's coming from.
So that's where the educational route to get to that point.
And from then, you then build off various courses or specialities of that.
So you can go into the fabric and look at the U-values and look at those sorts of things.
And it's worthwhile having training separate from those.
You would look at the energy assessments, you would look at real life predictions, you
can do courses on those and they're all sort of top into it.
So the sustainability isn't so much you do a qualification to become sustainable, you
do a qualification to get into sustainability and then you continue for the rest of your
career doing courses and revising and looking at CPDs and continually learning as the process
of all as to keep on top of it.
So it's sort of a strange thing, I think.
But the biggest thing, if you're curious about the subject, you can come from any background
and get into this from any way.
You don't have to, you don't have to start at age 12 and become a physics master to do
this.
This is the sort of thing that you learn and you can learn.
That's really great to hear because one of the main reasons I started this podcast, I
started for many reasons, but this main one, I know so many people who have trained, updated
degree at uni in some sort of something, go into the real job and they realise they hate
it and then they feel like they're stuck and then they spend their life like they spend
like maybe the next five years unhappy searching like, you know, for different routes, but
showing them that like you can have any degree you want and you can come into this really
interesting ever changing industry.
That's going to be at the forefront of so many news articles to show them like it makes
it exciting.
Like if you tell if you advertise that to anyone, they'll be like, yeah, I want to I
want a bit of that exposure there.
But yeah, that's really good to hear.
Okay.
So now we are coming to the question round.
So this is the assessing the asset section.
So this is just a wee section where I maybe talk about different technologies.
We've come across as energy assessors and yeah, and then I'm going to have a wee from
the later on, which I'll explain the details just before.
So there are many different technologies that can be installed in your house or building
that can help for just for just energy.
So Alan, I'm going to list some energy saving technologies or techniques or words that we
come across when we look at a building.
I'm going to list the opposite word.
Okay.
So you have to guess.
Sounds curious.
I've got two really hard ones and then I've got like, you know, some hopefully you should
be able to get.
And then if you do, I'll keep on doing this.
And if not, we never mentioned this actually again.
Okay.
That's good.
Okay.
So the first word is cold gain.
Yes, exactly.
So yeah, we come across heat loss.
Okay.
Next one.
Me worthless.
Yeah.
Me worthless.
You value me.
Yeah.
Okay.
This one.
It's difficult because it is a sin of a day term.
Glare.
I think the opposite of glare.
I'm curious about what that is.
Shading.
Okay.
Now this one, these two, they weren't my best, but I'll see what happens.
Okay.
This is a specific type I'm talking about.
Okay.
Solid opening conductor.
Arch, right?
I want to come get that.
Solid opening conductor.
Cavity, wall, insulation.
Okay.
I've got one more.
And again, it might be a stretch, but like then people can play at home.
Like we can see if they can get this.
Conserve, fire, hold, loss.
What was that again?
Conserve, fire, hold, loss.
That's a heat something heat game.
Right.
Okay.
Waste water, heat recovery.
Yes.
Somebody with something else.
That's very good.
You know, you should create a crossword.
Yeah.
Like a version of the Times Crossword.
Yeah.
It'll be, yeah, I'll go out simultaneously with this.
But yeah.
Okay.
Well, thank you for playing the assessing the assets round of the enjoy your time.
That's very good.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, as you mentioned, you're credited to assess buildings in Northern Ireland, Wales,
England, Scotland and Republic of Ireland.
So that's a lot of different regions for like to assess energy.
I think we kind of did touch on this, but what is your favourite region to assess in?
Okay.
It's like they all have their plus points and different, different strategies for doing
things.
I think probably as a favourite, it'll probably be England.
Maybe an odd choice, but it's really because it's probably the more aggressive and you
can assess it using software that allows you to get a good insight into it.
So I think that's probably where the rest will go to.
That's probably why, because it's more advanced than you can assess it using software that
allows you to get really into the calculations and see why things and what can influence
it in a better way.
That's okay.
That's great to hear.
I know one of the big changes that happened for us in, I think was it September 2020 or
September 2018, was the release of the energy assessment guidance for the Greater London
Authority.
What that did is that mentioned a particular section where it talked about the carbon factor
of electricity and the effect all the connecting to the renewables, all the connection of renewables
to the national grid was having on electricity.
And for us, I think we were assessing stuff.
A lot of the developments maybe had gas boilers or they're really primarily focused on gas.
But then when this came out and it showed electricity had nearly halved in the amount
of carbon it produces per kilowatt hour, it really changed the game and made electricity
a front runner and look at our electricity pumps.
Yes, it did.
It was almost like the best kept secret of the national grid.
It had been bubbling for a while where electricity was seen as a poor thing or a bad thing, I
guess in some way in the past.
But with the advancements from the UK grid and actually the grids from Europe as well,
it has performed quite sustainable and there's just change for encouragement to move away
from fossil fuels into electricity where it goes through.
So it's probably going to cause its own issues because we'll all want to connect to electric
and we can't all connect to electric.
So there's going to be a point when how do you grow the grid and how do you maintain
the grid and can you maintain that factor in the future because you're going to have
the renewables.
Can the renewables keep up to keep the value down as it expands?
Maybe two or three times the capacity of what's needed there.
But it really did change everything.
It changed as opposed to the technologies involved at the time would have been CHPs
and because the electricity that they were offsetting against for performance of gas
would be what was encouraged, but it's not so encouraged now, so it's changed into more
heat pump technology that's moved into.
So it has really changed the landscape of sustainable assessment.
Even from heat, like I know heat pumps have been the last big phase, craze the last couple
years in the energy industry.
But I think even now that's moving on.
I'm hearing a lot of talk about hydrogen and hydrogen boilers and all.
Yeah, there is.
Each technology is great and each technology has its downside.
I have a personal theory that it takes about five years for people to think like what they
don't like about the technology and then try and move into something else.
So the hydrogen boilers is interesting because hydrogen boilers is very like a gas technology
and gas has the advantage of being able to switch on and off very quickly and re-enter
things very, very quickly and operate at higher temperatures.
There's always been a trouble of where you get the hydrogen from and that's always a
concern and the overall sustainability is slightly in question.
But if that was ever solved, then it is a very adaptable technology because you can
pack a lot of energy into something like hydrogen.
There's also maybe a perception that some people might think hydrogen is dangerous,
as opposed to the fat natural gas in their houses for a while.
So hydrogen is a dangerous thing, but it's just another gas.
But yeah, I know that's an interesting thing.
Heat pumps are a very good technology.
They're quite clean, there's no emissions off it, they're easy to handle.
They might think at low temperatures, which is probably where its downside comes from.
It's harder to operate at higher temperatures if you need that service.
But they're all good to handle, they all work well with the handles.
It's interesting to see the change of how things move.
That's a really interesting point you made just there about perception.
I remember when I was doing my thesis and he did it on a renewable electricity grid
in Derry.
This was maybe in 2017, so not that long ago, or it doesn't feel that long ago, but it probably
is.
I was like, put the title and I did the thing where graduates do, they put the thesis title
on Facebook and I'll show everyone this is what I was working on, get all the likes.
Someone commented underneath it, they mentioned the RHI, or they mentioned about renewables,
and it was like, oh sure, that'll be a lot of good.
I had negative connotations with it, and I was like, that's amazing to see that even
though the RHI scheme, which was years ago, people still view renewables, especially here
in Northern Ireland, like that as a bad thing.
They perceive it as like...
Yeah, I was a pity because it was actually quite a good scheme, I suppose, badly money.
Yeah, exactly.
In some way, there's that perception that can happen, but there's also an infrastructure
that backs it up.
For people to get the heat pumps, then they have to have a dwelling that's suitable, it's
well insulated, and they also need to have an electrical capacity that can take it, and
maybe the some of the local grid areas can't take that.
So there's a bit of a perception, some people don't like wind turbines on the landscape,
some people like wind turbines in the landscape, and you can see the perception that will probably
change and renewables will just be a thing that exists.
As it gets more common, it becomes something that people can accept, or you identify issues
with renewables that can have connotations.
You pay some sort of title system and something that might affect the fish and the lettuce.
So that's the thing that can happen, but you can deal with it and you can get over it,
and it's the future that's happening with this mixture of renewables.
So I think people are probably more accepting now, especially as the cost of energy has
increased, and because the cost has increased, there's more of an awareness in people's minds
about it, and so saving energy is something that's forthcoming in people's minds, and
therefore they accept renewables a bit more, I think.
That's great.
When you talk about the cost of energy, I definitely want to focus on an episode where
we break down the price of electricity, just because that's the highest one.
We'll suppose we'll do the price of all fuels, but just exactly what goes into it.
But yeah, that'll be for a future episode.
But you've been great to have us.
Thank you so much for answering all the questions.
Just before we go, do you have any advice for future prospective energy assessors or
engineers who are looking to get into this particular sector?
Okay, I sort of called back to Naira on that.
The answer is that it's good to be curious.
And so sometimes when you're starting out and you're just getting your foot in the door
of this and you're not quite sure how it's working, you may get some advice from people,
take the advice, but also make your own advice up.
Think about what you're doing and where you're going.
And as you discover things, try to learn why that happens and what the real life consequences
of certain things are.
So if someone tells you how to do a calculation, try and figure out why that calculation works,
because that will lead into something else.
And those calculations, they'll embed into your common sense and you can start making
reactions.
And something that's kind of doubled me and I was told when I was training is that sometimes
you may only have 20 minutes to make a decision on a project that can change its whole direction.
And you don't have time to work it all out, but you've got that 20 minutes and can you
make a difference in those 20 minutes?
And if you can, you could have such an influence on development.
And I think having that as your core.
So listen to what advice people give you, but question it as well.
And because you're in a fast evolving area of development and you can be the one that
actually makes that change.
Don't think because other people have done something for 20 or 30 years that that's the
way to do it.
You can make it, you can do it differently, you can do other things.
And so just have the confidence in yourself to make those changes and to see them.
So I think anyone starting out should have that ability.
And if you're not sure of why someone's asking to do something or why a calculation has to
be done a certain way, find out if you're on curiosity, because it just lets you see
it a bit more.
And that's how you develop.
That's really good to hear.
That actually is going to be similar to the advice I was going to give, which is not as
detailed and nicely phrased as your advice.
It's like when assessing carbon in a project, always check why it has carbon happening.
Because.
Yeah, again, like, you know, I like, you know, just like, you know, what we said was the
same thing.
I was like, no, it wasn't.
I'm just part of a series.
But again, thanks for being on.
OK, thank you.
And you'll definitely be back.
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