E-news Issue 6 - July 2007
Routes to Innovation | ThinkingWater | Eco-house | Science Museum | XRF technique
Eco-house - a project for sustainable living
The ‘eco-house’ project funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), has helped students learn about sustainability, while staff in MERI are offering a new range of consultancy services to businesses to aid sustainable development.
The modern world is becoming more of a burden on the planet. As society becomes more environmentally conscious, there is an increasing awareness and need to find sustainable ways of living and working in order to conserve the world's resources.
The HEA Environment and Sustainable Development small grant project, eco-house, has now been embedded into the curriculum of three new undergraduate courses, in order to educate a new generation of engineers and building specialists in these concepts.
Staff at MERI also want to encourage businesses to adopt sustainable development into management systems and decision making processes. MERI's new consultant and leader of the eco-hose project, Andy Young, has expertise in renewable energy systems and industrial energy management. Andy Young also provides consultancy and research on natural ventilation, passive solar heating, energy efficiency and pollution emission monitoring amongst other things.
The eco-house project culminated in May 2007 with a working model of the house, which has a wide range of renewable energy systems such as a grass roof, solar panels and wind turbine.
The eco-house is capable of providing adequate levels of heat, power, light, and ventilation for the UK environment. It maximises the use of local and natural resources, and minimises carbon impact and reliance on fossil fuels.
The interdisciplinary project team working on the model consisted of 11 experts from electrical, architecture, mechanical, design and building services degree courses, who took inspiration from the award winning 'House of Future' design by Jestico and Whiles in Cardiff, Wales.
The eco-house was designed to accommodate a four person family and was built to 1/5th scale. The architects collaborated with engineers to integrate the infrastructure of the house with the mechanical and electrical services, natural ventilation, and passive solar heating systems. For example, electricity was generated by a combination of a vertical axis wind turbine and photovoltaic solar panels, which were integrated by a power controller providing renewable energy used to power the heating systems. For heat power the house uses a combination of solar water heating and under-floor heating, passive solar heating, and an air-to-air heat pump, depending on the prevailing conditions. Super-insulation made from recycled denim jeans, and thermal mass made from recycled glass and non-solvent based resin, were used to retain the heat within the building.
The eco-house also boasts integrated control and environmental monitoring systems, including weather monitoring, and a 24-7-365 performance monitoring system which uses a fuzzy logic environmental control algorithm to predict the weather. This makes best use of available energy to maintain comfort levels. These systems draw on research expertise in MERI and were supported by industrial sponsors including AES Solar Systems, Danfus and Innotherm.
Once the eco-house is complete and fully functioning, it will find a permanent home somewhere on the University city campus with direct access to Sheffield's sunlight!
For more information about the project or to enquire about our new consultancy services, please contact Andy Young.
To find out about our courses here, please view the following online prospectus entries
Drawing of eco-house design
The project team with the model frame
'House of the Future', Cardiff, Wales
Some of the technology used in the house
