• Energy Research
• 2010 close
• 2012 close

The national benefits of the project lie directly in assisting Australia achieve significant emissions reductions (at least 60% by 2050) as part of the global effort to avoid dangerous climate change. This needs to be done in an effective, efficient and equitable manner that takes into account other national policy goals including those of the energy sector. There are clear benefits in developing a framework that can assist in creating a policy mix that explicitly deals with the complementarities and trade-offs that arise in the interaction of the various policy instruments employed to achieve these multiple goals.

The project aims to create an easy to use integrated building design software tool for SME’s to encourage the development of low impact buildings in the UK. The toolset includes a BIM system whereby a house can be designed in the system’s CAD module and feedback given on financial and carbon costs, and sustainability indicators such as u-values, SAP, embodied/operational CO2 and Code for Sustainable Homes. Designs can be created using either the software’s own material assemblies, or whole house templates, both of which can be modified, for the quick and easy creation of designs to specific ratings. The software contains an extensive on-line database of construction products, created as part of the project, comprising information on cost, physical properties, usage and wastage factors, embodied CO2. Outputs include indicative SAP ratings, SWMP estimates, 2d drawings, 3d visualisations, customer quotes, materials schedules, SMM7/NRM bill of quantities. Customisable charts provide comparisons of performance against benchmarks and best practice, or against other designs in the system. The software facilitates users’ exploration of design options, comparing the affect of design variations on both cost and sustainability indicators, thus encouraging innovation, sensitivity analysis of designs, and the consideration of different construction materials and methods prior to build.

Over the 2 year project HBXL will provide an easy to use integrated tool for SMEs to design buildings from initial concepts and feasibility through detailed design for low impact buildings in the UK. The system will be based on live product data from suppliers. The toolset will provide realtime feedback of the capital and whole life costs with carbon impacts in a 2D/3D photo realistic environment to communicate early stage design options to all stakeholders and encourage innovation and sensitivity analysis. The resulting data will be accessible by the construction team and building users via the CAD interface to provide JIT construction data, product characteristics and building user information via HBXL's new on-line data and project management services. Modules will allow suppliers of products and assemblies to upload and share their CAD drawings of their systems for drag and drop incorporation into designs, complete with all cost and carbon data for inclusion into the automated cost and carbon impact assessments. These objectives will be achieved following research to assess code of practice and other standards in the UK and abroad to devise specifications for HBXL programmers. Further research will investigate the ability for all business sectors in the supply chain to provide environmental and technical data in a standard format for integration into the designs and provide recommendations of the format and scope of the required data. Additional research will identify 3D gaming technologies to assist in design presentation and environmental behaviour of the proposed design together with a review of emerging mobile computing technologies for instant accessibility.

This project will improve national capability to optimise power production from wind turbine farms in complex terrain by improving the understanding of the flow regime. By better understanding separated regions and the turbulent structures within these regions power production can be optimised and fatigue risks associated with turbine positioning in complex sites can be reduced. This will improve confidence in wind farm site assessment techniques and consequently reduce economic risks associated with current wind farm viability assessments. By increasing national capacity to generate clean energy stationary energy emissions can be reduced. This project will also deliver high calibre graduates that will be potential future industry leaders.