IES-VE User Forum

Hi IES Gurus,

I am after your views on the following;

I am looking at central gas fired boilers in individual buildings with CHP as lead located in a central plant room serving all buildings.
For BRUKL assessment purposes I have modelled the buildings individually.

What is the best way of inputting this strategy in VE Compliance? If I input it as district heating and calculate/ input the carbon and primary energy factors for the whole site when I run BRUKL compliance for the individual building I get very high primary energy consumption when compared with the notional building.
Is there a way to input this under the CHP tab?
Has anyone else faced the same situation and how you dealt with it?

Thanks for your help in advance and have a good weekend!

Hi,

I would say that according to Part L (paragraph 2.12), you have a district heating system. So that is the correct/only way to model it.

You could possibly get a lenient building control officer to let you model it another way though.

Paragraph 57 of the modelling guide has the details of the notional building's primary energy for district heating etc.

How have you calculated the carbon / energy factors? There could be a mistake there. According to Part L these need to account for heat losses through the distribution circuit which is generally a messy calculation. These calculations should also be signed off and enclosed with the BRUKL.

Also what exactly are you trying to achieve with your model? Just Part L compliance or certain BREEAM credits / planning targets?

I hope this helps.

Ross

Hi Ross,
Thanks for your response and for reminding me of Part L2 Paragraph 2.12, I seem to keep forgetting it
I am trying to achieve both Part L and BREEAM Ene 01: 5 credits.
I will pass this to our LCEA who can hopefully help me with the calculation.
I wish an approved/ consistent/ correct calculation spreadsheet for carbon and energy factors could magically appear as I have seen too many different interpretations.
I will let you know how I get on.
Eleni