Domestic Planning Applications UK

It has been produced a fair amount of reports of new houses or conversion of existing houses or mixed use buildings as it was requested by the National-UK, London and local Boroughs Policies for Planning Permission.

Among these studies are included:
SAP calculations,
Energy Strategies according the lean-clean-green London plan hierarchy
Renewables feasibily studies
Energy Performance Assessment for BREEAM, Ecohomes and Code of Sustainable Homes

These studies were carried out for Metropolis Green, 2012.

In February 2007, EU environment ministers agreed in principle to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 based on 1990 levels.

The NPPF, published in 03/2012  calls the attention:

• to take full account of flood risk and coastal change according ( as per climate change consequences)
• to encourage the reuse of existing resources, including conversion of existing buildings
• to request Local Plan policies to  focus on local requirements for decentralised energy

New Developments and Refurbishments should comply with a number of the following policies, regulations and standards which require the calculation of energy demand and carbon emissions:

• Building Regulations 2010
• London Plan and Local Borough  policies
• Code for Sustainable Homes 2010

Climate change mitigation Strategic seeks to achieve an overall reduction in London’s carbon dioxide emissions of 60 per cent (below 1990 levels) by 2025.
Development proposals should make the fullest contribution to minimising carbon dioxide emission.targets for carbon dioxide emissions reduction in buildings. These targets are expressed as minimum improvements over the Target Emission Rate (TER) as described by the UK Building Regulations:

These reports have been prepared in line with London Plan policy and local Borough (City of Westminster) policy requirements, and follows the Mayor’s energy hierarchy: Be Lean, Be Clean, and Be Green.

Development proposals should make the fullest contribution to minimising carbon dioxide emissions in accordance with the following energy hierarchy:

• Be lean: use less energy
• Be clean: supply energy efficiently
• Be green: use renewable energy

 

According to the London Plan, the first stage in the energy hierarchy is to determine the improvement in the energy performance of the building based on fabric and services specifications. In other words it uses energy efficiently.

According to the London plan, 25 per cent of the heat and power used in London is expected to be generated through the use of localised decentralised energy networks.
Developments should select energy systems in accordance with the following hierarchy:

1. Connection to existing heating or cooling networks
2. Site wide CHP plant
3. Communal heating and cooling

CHP is a Combined Heat and Power plant which produces electricity and heat as a by-product. Heat can be provided for space or water heating demand of the site or stored in a thermal tank and distributed on demand. Trigeneration CCHP systems combine cooling, heat and power.

Heating or Cooling Networks

London Heat Map is a tool  where existing and future heating and cooling network opportunities are identified:

London Plan requires carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced by at least 20 per cent through the use of on-site renewable energy technologies. Those include:

• Wind turbines
• Photovoltaics
• Solar Water systems
• Biomass Heating / CHP
• Ground Sourced Heating / Cooling

A feasibility study would show whether site conditions allow these technologies to be incorporated in a cost effective manner contributing to building’s overall carbon dioxide emissions savings .

The prevalent environmental assessment methods for buidlings are:

• BREEAM (UK)
• EcoHomes (UK)
• Code for sustainable homes (UK)
• LEED (US and Worldwide)
• Passive House (Germany)

 

some policies require building’s environmental  assessment to pass an prerequisite standard.