An Electric Surge For Heating

As specifiers seek products to help them comply with Part L of the Building Regulations, and tap into renewable energy sources, electric heating is proving increasingly popular explains Karen Trewick, marketing communications manager at Dimplex.

The UK government has signed up to a number of international agreements on reducing greenhouse gases to counteract global warming. As buildings use almost half of the UK’s generated energy and are responsible for 30% of the country’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, its no surprise they’re an obvious target to help reduce the UK’s carbon output. As a result, if you’re involved in the construction industry you will be aware of the increasing legislation, like Part L, which is driving specifiers to use energy efficient and renewable solutions.

PART L – MAIN AIMS

Part L deals with the ‘conservation of energy’ in buildings, and has four main aims:

1. Limit heat loss through the building fabric, and through pipes, ducts vessels used for space heating, space cooling and hot water storage.
2. Limit exposure to excessive solar gains
3. Provide efficient building services, including heating, hot water, fixed lighting, ventilation and cooling – as well as efficient controls
4. Provide the owner information about the building so that they can operate and maintain it to ensure energy efficient operation.

In order for a building to comply with Part L, there are now a number of tests for both domestic and commercial buildings. These include air tightness testing, and certain minimum performance standards for heating, hot water and lighting.

CRITICAL CONTROLS

Part L puts great emphasis on controls and states that ‘all systems should be provided with appropriate controls to allow reasonable levels of energy efficiency to be achieved in use’. Electric heating offers a high degree of controllability from sophisticated central programmers controlling a whole house system down to individual control, which means the system can be designed to fit around the user’s lifestyle – ensuring minimum energy wastage.

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Compliance with Part L is not complex, providing you understand the parameters. Unlike Part L 2002, which based building energy efficiency calculations on the performance of individual elements, Part L 2006 takes a more holistic approach and requires all parts of the building – from fabric to building services – to work in harmony. Installers who understand this can bring valuable insight to a project and may well find themselves with more influence over building services decisions than in the past. The key is to be involved in the project at the design stage, as any installer who tries to substitute a different product at installation, may be compromising the building’s compliance.

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

While Part L does not make a legal requirement that renewables are used, planning requirements such as the Merton/10% rule which require at least 10% of the site’s projected carbon emissions to be off-set by on-site renewables, are driving a growing interest in renewable and sustainable energy sources. In future, installers will find themselves working on buildings using products such as solar hot water systems, heat pumps, wind turbines, or combined heat and power. Grants are now available to householders to install some of these technologies in their homes, and the take-up of these grants has been very rapid, further increasing the demand.

PM Gordon Brown also recently announced that the UK will be increasing its housing stock considerably over the coming years and that these homes will be ‘zero carbon’ wherever possible. Whilst ‘zero carbon’ is still very difficult to achieve, installers will see a lot more work with these new technologies as housebuilders, housing associations and local authorities push forward with building programmes.

It is important to be flexible about product specification and to be ready to work with the most appropriate system for a building’s needs. Electric heating offers a number of generic advantages over other fuels [see box] and as the price of fossil fuels rises and resources dwindle, electricity will become the key power source of the future in the UK. There is no indication yet how far the UK will go down the nuclear power route, but it seems likely since it will be difficult to meet demand with renewables alone. As a result, electric heating - which can also link easily into renewable energy sources - has to be the long term logical choice. The time’s definitely right now for installers to take a fresh look and switch on to the benefits of electric.

THINKING ELECTRIC

• Combining cost effective electric heating with solar as a low carbon water heating solution provides an excellent means of meeting the requirements of Part L, as well as providing low running costs. When recommending and installing solar hot water systems, look for manufacturers who offer pre-packaged kits which make specification simple and installation.
• Products such as the Dimplex DuoHeat radiator which has a unique heat management system to automatically control the energy, can reduce total energy used by up to 10% when compared with a traditional storage heater – a figure recognised in SAP2005.
• Electricity is 100 per cent efficient at point of use – no wastage, no emissions.
• Electric heating appliances can be installed virtually anywhere with a power supply, giving freedom of choice not only over location within a room but also with the design of the building.
• Electric heating systems can be controlled from one central point, just like gas, but intelligent controls mean increased flexibility and responsiveness.
• Electric heating can be controlled on a room-by-room basis, reducing energy waste.