A new centre for sustainable building design opens today in London, showcasing the latest technologies set to
help tackle the capital’s carbon emissions.
The Centre for Efficient and Renewable Energy in Buildings (CEREB) is the first teaching, research and demonstration facility of its kind to open in London.
Based at London South Bank University (LSBU) its purpose is to enable students, academics and industry develop the
technologies that can help reduce the city’s carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2025.
Occupying the roof space in one of the buildings of LSBU’s Southwark campus, CEREB has a range of low carbon technologies integrated into the design including ground source heat pumps, photovoltaic arrays, a wind turbine and solar fibre optic lighting.
A PV test bed provides technology developers with the opportunity to evaluate new solar panel designs, while smart meters and energy monitoring equipment throughout the building enable researchers to access data on energy consumption and the contribution of
renewables in real-time anywhere in the world via a web portal.
Students and visitors, meanwhile, have the opportunity to see the workings of the
buildings with their own eyes, thanks to PV glass display panels on plant rooms, service ducts and air handling units.
Inner city location"This is the first centre of its kind to be built in an inner city location in the UK, so will play a vital role in future building design, in both the capital and other world cities," commented Tony Day, Professor of Energy Engineering at LSBU and director of CEREB.
CEREB is partnership project between LSBU, City University London and Kingston University London.
Martin Fry, Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Energy Management at City University London, said the new centre would "educate a new generation of engineers, to drive new solutions."
Professor Sarah Sayce, head of Surveying and Planning at Kingston University added: "CEREB will be an extremely useful laboratory for our staff and students, and its unique facilities will enable fruitful collaborations between the partner institutions."
The building, which has been built with financial backing from the London Development Authority, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and M&E Sustainability, will be formally opened by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
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