No more excuses!!! Join : “Green Business Networking Speed-Dating” organized by the FCCIHK and its Green business committee.

Its a  speed-Networking-event  for companies in the green industry :

• Unique opportunity to meet a maximum of companies in the green business in a minimum of time
• One-hour meetings organized under a speed-dating format
• 3-minute interviews
• Around 20 companies met during one hour
• Followed by a one-hour networking cocktail.
• Open to all actors in the field

Time efficient networking format, that suits your Hong Kong

Participants:

- Open to members of the French and German Chambers
- Participation of Delegates from the Environment Protection Department
- Diligent Group Ltd., EKKO (HK) Ltd, Suez Environmental

Register online on the French Chamber : Here

Power generating stations were once upon a time, small, and local, often located right on the edge of town.  Now remember at that time the fuel of choice was coal, so as the demand for the new electricity service increased, more coal was burnt in the cities increasing local pollution. Faced with the choice of clean up or move out, the generators moved outside the communities they served to remote locations that allowed larger plants to be constructed, they were out of sight and out of mind.

As the distance between the generator and consumer increased, extra losses in the form of transmission losses occurred, to cover the vast distances the transmission voltage was increased incurring transformer losses at each end of a circuit.

Long Transmission Lines Increases losses

Also have you ever wondered why many power generating stations are located near rivers or coastline? Because the process of using steam to electricity generates vast quantities of waste heat, and with the generators now located at distal sites there are few neighbours to use this high grade waste heat so its dumped into the nearest convenient river, cooling tower or seashore.

Inland generators overcome the problem by building cooling towers (pictured below) using vast quantities of water to dump the waste heat into the atmosphere.

FLICKR http://underclassrising.net/

To be frank the thermal efficiency of a typical coal fired generating station is miserably low approximately 30 -35 percent.

So today, after pushing the generators and pollution away from us, it should not be a surprise to find that less than 10 percent of the energy in fuel ever reaches the consumer or put it another way 90 percent of energy in the fuel is lost forever.

There are viable alternatives for China and elsewhere in Asia. Cogeneration is the engineering term we use, essentially it is a system that will use that waste energy and that means a dramatic efficiency improvement.

The waste heat energy can be used for heating,  process, or air conditioning system and provides an overall thermal efficiency nearer 85 percent,  nearly 300% improvement over conventional plants.

Adsorption chillers are a breed apart, they create chilled water but heat energy through a process of concentrating and dilution of spacial salt compounds. High grade waste heat from any source could be used to power air conditioning without the need for large electrical supplies (some electricity would be still needed for the associated air handling units, pumps and automatic controls).

Local Cogeneration as the name implies is close to the consumer and demands a cleaner fuel, natural gas is a good choice where available.

One barrier for the wider implementation is the utility companies themselves, having invested billions of dollars to build and operate the plant and equipment, they have unsurprisingly created rules to protect that investment.

What is needed is community based approach, for example use the locally created waste to fire cogeneration plants for that community. Instead of hiding from the problem, make it visible, a showcase,  demonstrate that waste from their office or home will be burnt across the street to provide local community electricity.

For manufacturing plants using high pressure steam, a simple design change can result in large benefits, generate superheated steam to drive an electricity turbine first, that will power your factory, and use the turbine exhaust saturated steam to serve your process, and return the condensate to the boiler – its a simple and elegant solution but often overlooked.

Here is a link to an interesting article about the multiple use for steam generation

Instead of using technology, China has sadly followed the western development model for coal fired plant, plus suffering the torment of wasted energy plus regular power outages. Many businesses in China, particularly in Guangdong have no choice except diesel fuelled engines to overcome frequent blackouts and shortages, whilst simultaneously wasting Gigawatts in wasted heat.

Countries with a strong demand for heating homes and offices, such as Germany and Nordic countries in Europe waste heat from power generators is used in district heating systems delivering heat to the doorstep. Here in Asia, and the tropics where air conditioning is demanded for comfort, waste heat from power generators, or biomass boilers should be used to power to absorption chillers.

The public and governments are increasingly focused on demand side awareness, and it is noticeable, through more efficient lighting, LED’s fittings, and air conditioning systems but remember that is one part of the story.  In Hong Kong 1/3rd of the power generated is used to drive air conditioning equipment,  so businesses today are paying utility companies to waste fuel resources that can’t be replenished. Don’t you think it is time to get smart? I do.

– John A. Herbert, Kelcroft, Consultant

Hong Kong Trader magazine featuring an interview with John Herbert, Kelcroft

~~~ John Herbert, Kelcroft, Consultant

UPDATE (4 Nov 2010):

Parlez-vous français? Also published in French, here is the link:
http://www.lepetitjournal.com/hongkong/a-la-une-hong-kong/88814-ecologie-hong-kong-affirme-son-expertise-environnementale.html

click on an image to enlarge………. the red overlay indicates heavy traffic, green overlay indicates normal traffic, it is real time and that simple.

~~~ John A. Herbert, Kelcroft, BEAM Professional

EUI, or the other commonly used metrics for building efficiency are childs play to professionals, but the general public doesn’t get it. You need to spend your resources educating people what the metric means, but with MPG they get it!  Although the HKSAR hasnt taken up the challenge, opting for another EUI as part of the new building energy efficiency code (cap 611), the idea has taken hold in USA link from the Department of Energy Resources.

The USA State of Massachusetts has published a white paper ( link PDF white paper MPG for buildings).  Thanks for reading, here is my presentation slides on slideshare:

John Herbert, Kelcroft, BEAM Professional

If you dig deep enough, and long enough hidden within the Hong Kong BEAM website you might just stumble on the new BEAM FAQ page.  It was created by the BEAM Technical Review Committee (TRC) to answer many of the general questions by building owners and consultants about technical issues involved with obtaining BEAM certification – to save your time here is a shortcut:

Hong Kong BEAM Frequently Asked Questions  – BEAM FAQ

It has always been difficult to predict how and when the purely voluntary green building rating systems will become part of the building code requirements, not so for Malaysia, where the local newspaper reports today that all new buildings (new bungalows, semi-detached homes, government buildings) must have rainwater harvesting systems to gain building approval.

In case that over complicated link is broken, here is the report from the The Star (http://thestar.com.my):

Published: Monday June 13, 2011 MYT 4:42:00 PM

New bungalows, semi-detached homes, govt buildings must have rain water systems

By NG CHENG YEE

KUALA LUMPUR: Developers must include rain-harvesting systems in new bungalows, semi-detached homes and government buildings to get their plans approved.

This new regulation would soon be incorporated into the Uniform Building By-Laws to make the green feature mandatory, said Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung.

The National Council for Local Government, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, had approved the new by-law on May 23, he said.

“Such a feature will allow owners of these premises to conserve rain water and use it to water plants, wash cars and for other purposes,” he told a press conference on Green Solution for Property Development Conference 2011: Greener Cities here on Monday.

He said developers who failed to include the feature in these buildings would not be able to get approval for their building plans.

On existing buildings, Chor said owners were encouraged to install such feature on a voluntary basis.

“We hope that when more houses are equipped with such feature, house owners will be able to see the benefit of it and follow suit,” he said.

Water conservation is a serious and often overlooked issue, countries across the region are only just beginning to consider and the fact Malaysia has acted can only be a positive indication.  As I have said before water is the new carbon.  Under the Hong Kong green building rating system BEAM fresh water conservation is encouraged with rainwater harvesting being one of many solutions. One would hope the Malaysian building code will address the issue of load (usage) reduction first and foremost, and no rely on rainwater harvesting to support unsustainable practices.

Three sensors neatly located directly above heater (lighting fitting)

Energy efficiency is easy right?  In a seminar about carbon and energy efficiency I noticed the neat location of three air conditioning return air temperature sensors – direct over a heater (aka lighting fitting) .  The truth is, energy efficiency is hard.

~~~ John Herbert, Kelcroft, Consultant.

Here is my top 5 green building challenges that need new solutions and green technology development.  Here is a link to the somewhat dark video on youtube:

and the presentation in pdf format.

Any other suggestions?

— John Herbert, consultant

BBC World Website (7 April 2011)

Hardly a day goes by without more news from the Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, unlike past disasters, we have had more news, and media coverage that was inconceivable even ten years ago, and the unfolding tragedy in Japan and at the Fukushima Daiichi has impacted countries far from the leaking radiation.

Many countries including Germany, and China, have halted or postponed existing nuclear programmes for “safety checks” as the media report continues to report the countless attempts by the plant operators TEPCO to try and control the leakage from the wreckage. Japan like Hong Kong has few natural resources (coal, oil or gas) and relies heavily on its nuclear energy programme to provide 30% of its energy needs.

The elephant in the room is those pesky commitments to tackle climate change. China announced on the eve of COP16 (and reiterated at the recent NPCC 12th Five year plan [1] ) that it would reduce it’s Carbon Intensity by 40-45%   Hong Kong closely followed suit and also pledged to lowers its CI, but don’t mistake these Carbon Intensity reductions as energy efficiency improvements.

Carbon Intensity (CI) is defined as the quantity of carbon (CO2) emitted per unit of energy.  Therefore to lower your carbon intensity change from burning a high carbon fossil fuel like coal, to nuclear energy (or renewable energy) reduces the intensity, without any energy efficiency improvement, does that sound more like a Business As Usual approach than a real framework or strategy to tackle dwindling resources?

To achieve this impressive figures would be achieved by switching from power generation using fossil fuel to nuclear powered generation.  At Macau MIECF 2011 (31 March 2011) the Hong Kong Government’s EPD representative Mr Joe Fong [2] indicated that Hong Kong would increase the nuclear energy contribution imported from the mainland from 23% in 2009 to 50% by 2020.

Increasing Nuclear to 50% to lower Hong Kong's Carbon Intensity - Joe W.Y. Fong @ MICEF 2011

So, the obvious question needs to be raised,  if these promised CI reduction targets are to be achieved, and increasing nuclear energy production has been sidelined as a solution can will nations meet these ambitious targets? Is it even possible without increasing the contribution from nuclear powered facilities?  Fortunately, the answer to both questions is affirmative,  energy efficiency improvements can deliver real carbon reductions. It’s not sexy, and unlike building more power plants, it requires hard work on the ground, and political commitment but achievable.

Coupled with these unfolding events in Japan, unrest in the Middle East continues to cause jitters in the markets, dramatically increased crude oil prices adding salt to wound.  It seems that only major news reminds us that oil and other nature resources will not last forever.

Energy efficiency improvements are certain not a panacea for every problem a nation faces today, however developed nations have no excuses, I wonder how long it will take before politicians will truly embrace this opportunity.

– John Herbert, Kelcroft, consultant

1. China’s Carbon Intensity to be reduced by 40-45 % by 2020, based on 2005 baseline http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011npc/2011-03/07/content_12125740.htm

2. http://www.macaomiecf.com/miecf2011/brochure/Urban_Planning/Joe_Fong.pdf

If pressure from government, NGO’s, and your competitors is not enough, you can add students to the list pushing for change…. here is the link to report [link] where the local students in USA are standing up to be counted, demanding that the local council change the city planning code to make their city greener.

The student group said  “a change in the city code would at the least put forward a public message of commitment to sustainability, which they called a step in the right direction.” Indeed it would.

– John Herbert, Kelcroft, Consultant

Suggest your idea, comment on ideas and then vote for the best suggestions, it an opportunity to drive green sustainable building, have your say: http://greenbuilding.ideascale.com/

There seems to be a growing trend that needs to be corrected.  For sustainable building and rating systems advocates including Hong Kong BEAM and US LEED often encourage more, more, more.   It might be more site greenery, or in the case of LEED more ventilation.  However, I foresee a tragic mistake associating “more” with sustainable.

For site greenery, I am not saying we should ignore soft landscaping, greening the landscape is beneficial, aside from the physiological benefit,  greenery creates a micro-climate zone that can provide sun shading, and help lower the ambient temperature.  Hence, a well designed micro-climate zone will lower the environmental impact and reduce building operating costs.   Additionally replacing those endless lakes of concrete with soft landscaping mitigates the urban heat island effect.

Property designed soft landscaping, and I include green roofs in that sector, have a positive impact, particularly when outdoor air is drawn from these miniature micro-climatic zones.

Under LEED rating system extra credit can be achieved, encouraging designers to exceed ASHRAE’s (the ventilation experts) recommended ventilation rate by 30%.  The increased operating cost for moving, filtering, treating the additional air volume is an extravagance that has seemingly been overlooked.

Designers, including the creators of rating tools, should take a comprehensive holistic approach,  simply demanding more soft landscaping needlessly increases the demand for primary resources, like soil and water, and secondary resources including irrigation systems, piping to service the larger requirement.   All I am asking Think! before we demand more.

~~ John Herbert, Kelcroft, Consultant

He makes Building Science more interesting, and honestly more interesting than my pitch. I can’t agree with him on every point,  although he is primarily focused on the US/Canada region,  I have witness the same type of mentality every day in Asia.  Finally, I would like to wish a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year to you.

Enjoy!!

update:

also known as Cap 610 legislation link

— John Herbert, Kelcroft, Consultant

Landfilling is an unsustainable practice period, particularly so in Hong Kong where we have limited land available. Sustainable waste management changes our thinking about throwing  AWAY waste (and there is no AWAY) and embrace the community.

Out of sight out of mind thinking needs to be changed to locally transparent – you create it, it’s yours, it’s your local communities responsibility.  I have long argued for community based responsibility, use waste is as local fuel to be used for a local power plant, produce Town gas, or even fuel.

We shouldn’t build these basic facilities hidden behind concrete walls, but we should be display case transparent, use glass for everyone to see the inner workings, host field trips for the local school children – engage not preach at the local community.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is the local source of fuel used available locally, and using plasma or gasification plant (NOT INCINERATION) lowers the environmental impact and the noxious discharges. Being smaller than central facilities they could hook in to the local power grid infrastructure powering local homes or alternately creating fuel, power or Town Gas for the local people.

The real advantage is that people learn from the visual cues, upto 75% of learning is acquired visually, having a local visible and transparent facility is the prefect education solution.

— John A. Herbert, Consultant, Kelcroft

As manufacturing moved North into China, Hong Kong has been left with a legacy of under utilized factory space and industrial buildings. There is only so much demand for low yield warehouse and storage space, so opportunities to move up the value chain, converting to higher yielding properties such as lofts, commercial, and hotel accommodation is an attractive proposition. Another important factor to remeber, is that the necessary public transportation infrastructure is already in place.

The market has already dictated the direction, re-populating industrial space into more lucrative higher yielding office accommodation, yet, approximately 1.1 million square metres or 6.5% remained vacant (2008 data).

Last year (2009) the Government acknowledged that sustainability outweighed demolition, and removed the first major obstacle for the wholesale renovation and revitalization of industrial building stock, namely the land premium (a charge levied by government to change the land use) could be waived [link].

And now that initiative has been extended, the next hurdle technical issues and this time the concession is tied with BEAM PLUS [www.hk-beam.org.hk] green building certification.

First some background, the regulations for buildings set out the minimum technical requirements including issues such as planning, fire safety, lighting, ventilation and other stipulations. However, the industrial building stock is constrained by decisions from the past .

Therefore the Government has eased certain technical requirements to encourage wholesale conversion of  industrial buildings, on the express condition that the building obtains BEAM Plus Green Building label. PNAP APP 150 Items (ii) and (iv) directly refer to compliance with BEAM Plus as the condition for obtaining the waiver. PNAP APP150 (published September 2010) states:

…. To encourage green building designs and practices, provision of green and/or energy efficient features to revitalised industrial buildings will be a relevant factor in support of the granting of modification of or exemption from certain specific regulations. Examples relating to applications for such modification / exemption are as follows:

(i) If a refuge floor is required to be provided in accordance with the Code of Practice for the Provision of Means of Escape in Case of Fire (MOE Code) for the proposed conversion but there is difficulty or site constraint to comply with the technical requirements of the MOE Code, proposal for the provision of a refuge floor with greenery design and enhanced fire service installations will be favourably considered subject to no adverse comments from the Director of Fire Services. PNAP APP-122 is relevant.

(ii) In the case of conversion to office use, if there are difficulties in providing the required natural lighting and ventilation due to constraints posed by the original design as industrial building, application for modification of Regulations 30 [link] and 31 [link] of the Building (Planning) Regulations will be favourably considered if adequate artificial lighting and mechanical ventilation and energy efficient design that could achieve 40% in the categories of Energy Use (EU) and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) under the BEAM Plus certification with provisional assessment reports conferred by the Hong Kong Green Building Council are incorporated in the proposal. PNAP APP-130 is relevant.

(iii) For individual air-conditioning boxes/platforms attached to the external walls with projection larger than the usually accepted size and/or projection over street, application for modification / exemption will be favourably considered if the proposal is incorporated with the use of energy efficient/environmentally friendly air-conditioning units. PNAP APP-19 is relevant.

(iv) For the provision of curtain walls to existing building facades,exemption from section 31(1) of the Buildings Ordinance to allow the curtain walls to project over streets will be favourably considered if low-energy absorbent type glazing/energy efficient materials with energy efficient design of the curtain walls that could achieve 40% in the categories of EU and IEQ under the BEAM Plus certification with provisional assessment reports conferred by the Hong Kong Green Building Council are incorporated in the proposal. PNAP APP-2 is relevant.

Click here to download Wholesale Conversion of Industrial Buildings PNAP APP150 (PDF FORMAT ENGLISH)

or PNAP APP150 CHINESE

The environmental benefits cannot be under estimated, avoided building demolition, handling construction waste, and ultimately waste disposal are powerful arguments to support re-using the existing building stock if possible.

Will this new incentive help sway the market to encourage investment to upgrade the industrial building stock? I think it’s too earlier to judge, however it must be acknowledged that the Government’s Development Bureau has embraced sustainable building to encourage the reuse and redevelopment of existing buildings structures.

– John Herbert, Consultant, Kelcroft E&M Limited

BEAM (formerly HK-BEAM) consistently failed to market and communicate its key benefits both here and overseas, in the meantime USGBC created and heavily marketed LEED and gained an international renown. Later the HKSAR Government commissioned a new green building rating tool, it would have been a direct competitor to the long standing BEAM (http://www.hk-beam.org.hk) first created in 1996. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed, no pilot study took place and the tool, including its many certification stages was abandoned.

It is worthwhile to note that Australia, the GBCA (http://www.gbca.org.au) operates a green building rating system “Green Stars” for building design, and a different tool known as NABERS is entirely focused on the actual performance of buildings based on occupation and metered data.

The key issue, over the years stakeholders surveyed have constantly expressed a preference for green building labels to be awarded after the building was complete and operating (more like NABERS than Green Star). This is a key difference from LEED, Green Star, and other schemes, which awarded certificates based on design, and strong relying on the promise of superior environmental performance.Often these predication’s were based on optimist computer modelling.

Over the years, LEED has finally realized that design intent does not always translate to high performance buildings, and in V3 2009 version has called on building owners to share the critical metering data as the first step. Here is the link to a story about a LEED rated Walter Hardwick building [link] it’s one case where the LEED design has not been translated into green living for tenants, and supports the argument for post occupation certification.

The challenge remains for all rating systems in my mind, when project proponents look for the green building label to help and assist the marketing and sale of the property before occupation, offering only the promise of greener living. In the case for a new building, building operators make choices which impact the environmental impact.

Don’t think for second that defunct systems is limited to green buildings, there are countless buildings with fitted with gadgets that offered owners the promise of better building operations, management or lower costs, many have failed and litter our building stock.  The birth of computer controlled buildings, including the now ubiquitous BMS (Building Management Systems) promised the earth with energy and manpower savings, etc. etc.  As I witnessed only last week, many facility managers have reverted to paper-based manual operation and measurement records.

Going back to the issue, if design certification (promised performance) is offered that will assist the project proponent during the pre-sale, sale, and marketing activities, but the fact remains it is not any guarantee that the intended green features will be eventually installed, or operate correctly as the case of Walter Hardwick building [link] proves. But we surely cannot abandon new construction in favour of just certifying building operations, they are inextricably linked, and the use of materials critical for the sustainability and future operating impacts.

Furthermore, once an operating building is certified, how long should that certificate be valid? one, five or ten years? Fr the re-certification under BEAM EB (Existing Buildings) is five years, however the re-certification process is not really defined.

We need to listen to the stakeholders demanding green buildings that actually deliver superior environmental performance, not those which merely make that promise (aka green washing). From the project proponent / building owners perspective, how should we design a rating tool that is able determine how the building the future.

— John Herbert, Consultant, Kelcroft E&M Limited