Decarbonisation Mechanism

As a national imperative there is a drive to reduce carbon emissions to meet the UKs 4th, 5th and 6th carbon budgets. Using the Government’s thought leadership in Modern Methods of Construction the ‘Energy Pod’ project seeks to explore the opportunity to set out a standard design for low carbon modular off site produced plant rooms to act as a plug and play technology to decarbonise operational buildings and sites.

On 21st April 2022 the DfE launched its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy which set out the vision for the United Kingdom to become the world-leading education sector in sustainability and climate change by 2030. The strategy is underpinned by the following four strategic objectives. 

Sustainability And Climate Change Strategy

  1. Excellence in education and skills for a changing world: preparing all young people for a world impacted by climate change through learning and practical experience. 

  2. Net zero: reducing direct and indirect emissions from education and care buildings, driving innovation to meet legislative targets, and providing opportunities for children and young people to engage practically with the net zero concept.

  3. Resilient to climate change: adapting to mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change in our education and care buildings and infrastructure. 

  4. A better environment for future generations: enhancing biodiversity and increasing access to nature in and around education and care settings.

When improving the current condition of existing plant, these works typically replace systems on a like for like basis, with a reliance on any upgrade typically adopting the ‘business as usual’ gas fired boiler plant. However, it is accepted gas, oil and coal boilers are one of the highest contributing factors to climate change and the opportunity to further investigate and establish a platform of low carbon energy pods will enable a standardised delivery vehicle to support both renewals and improve our carbon position. 

Education contributes to approximately 35% of total public sector building emissions.

Schools represent approximately 2% of total UK carbon emissions, decarbonisation of existing educational buildings is essential to achieving the UK Government's Net Zero goals, with targets including phasing out natural gas boilers by 2035. 

AR Game Link

The Brief

With this strategic objective in mind energy pods have been designed to be:

  1. Net zero carbon enabled solutions for decarbonisation of the school estate and other government buildings. 

  2. Plug and Play and compatible with wider energy efficiency measures that would be deployed as part of a holistic decarbonisation plan for each site, and as a solution for existing buildings rapidly deployed to minimise disruption to operation. 

  3. Platform Construction maximising the benefits of Modern Methods of Construction for repeatable high-quality outputs. 

  4. A kit of parts to create standard types and sizes derived from a consistent component set to realise the efficiencies of demand aggregation of components across a pipeline of projects to deliver maximum benefit for minimum price. 

  5. A selectable and configurable solution, capable of being called off in response to urgent need (reactive) or deployed as part of a planned suite of decarbonisation measures. 

The Energy Pod Research and Innovation Project takes on a whole system approach to decarbonisation. It is not, however, intended to address all elements from day one by itself. It is recognised that very few schools will be in a position to transfer immediately to an all-electric solution (such as Heat Pumps), due to the cost of the fabric improvements that are required to make such systems viable. The premise of the Energy Pods solution is to put in place a planned routemap for the initial installation of the Pods, but also the longer term interventions to fully decarbonise a site.