Turn your air-con off, urges MEP firm

Cathy Crocker

“The best way to reduce energy use is to turn off the system completely,” argues Scott Wilson associate director: building services Cathy Crocker. This can be problematic in terms of dust and noise, she acknowledges but these issues can be addressed successfully at the design stage.

“For residential buildings or leisure facilities, it is very important for us to be able to design buildings so they can be ventilated naturally in winter, as that will save a huge amount of energy. Of course, during the hottest summer period we do need to have air-con, so that will always need to be factored in.”

She says that Scott Wilson’s favoured design approach, wherever possible, is deemed ‘mix match’. “In essence it just means turning off the air-con when you do not need it. You have to have a building that is designed correctly to enable natural ventilation – that is, opening windows and a shallow-plan floor plate.

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“Another consideration is really to think about increasing the setpoint of the air-con. Just by raising the setpoint from 21°C in summer up to 25°C you almost halve your MW/h of cooling consumption,” argues Crocker. Similarly, the design process also needs to take daylighting into account.

“Thermal analysis allows us to experiment with different window designs to ensure we get the correct balance between window size and minimising solar gain. It is a bit of a fine balance because obviously we do not want to introduce too much heat, but we also need to ensure that areas are well lit through natural means wherever possible.

“I think it is all very well designing a good building and having good intentions, but we need to make sure this is followed through into construction. Here in the Middle East, some buildings are well built, and some are not. As a design team it is our responsibility to work together so that the intent at the design stage is worked through into installation,” argues Crocker.

Read the full interview with Cathy Crocker in the February issue of MEP Middle East.