SPONSORED ROUNDTABLE | DECARBONISING COOLING The roundtable is sponsored by THE PANEL From left: Stephen MacLoughlin, regional director at Faithful + Gould; Amy Punter, associate director at Hoare Lea and member of the CIBSE Retrot in Heritage Buildings Committee; Ben Gholam, structural engineer at Price & Myers; Hugh Dugdale, associate principal at Elementa Consulting; Alex Smith, editor at CIBSE Journal; Matteo DallOmbra, VRV specialist at Daikin (hidden); Richard Cobb, associate, net zero, at Atkins Global (hidden); Bianca Laura Latini MCIBSE, senior sustainability engineer at Buro Happold COOLING FOR LIFE Decarbonising cooling involves passive design measures, efficient cooling and a robust approach to refrigeration leakage, according to members of a CIBSE Journal roundtable on a whole life approach to cooling, sponsored by Daikin I ndustry experts at a CIBSE Journal roundtable on cooling have unanimously agreed that the industry can take big steps towards decarbonisation if new buildings and systems are well designed to take building loads into account. The event, Decarbonisation: a whole life approach to cooling buildings sponsored by Daikin, looked at the complex challenges and potential solutions to staying comfortable on a warming planet. Refrigerant leakage, the challenges of cooling existing buildings, and embodied carbon were some of the topics debated. Hugh Dugdale, associate principal at Elementa Consulting, kicked off the roundtable by describing his involvement, as one of the authors, in the TM65.1 addendum, which investigated the embodied carbon impact of heating and hot-water equipment for use in residential buildings. He is also exploring the implications of refrigerant leakage, which can have a huge impact on global warming. Its so strange that theres so little information about refrigerant leakage, yet its a controlled substance, he said. It should be easy to record how much refrigerant is topped up and poured into systems each year, but theres no central database. We have contacted installers to get this information, but its very poorly documented. Bianca Laura Latini MCIBSE, senior sustainability engineer at Buro Happold, has also looked at refrigerant leakage and explored what will be available at the F-Gas Regulation phases. She has talked to manufacturers about refrigerant development and making low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants more feasible for clients. Latini has also done work for Bristol City Council on its heating and cooling policy, and a whole life carbon and cost assessment of seven different systems in commercial and residential buildings was carried out. They were all electric, because we started from the premise that they have a net zero carbon city target, and we looked at different kinds of heat pumps versus domestic heating and district heating networks, said Latini. The Council was interested to know the feasibility of low-GWP refrigerants. Its a call to manufacturers to develop lowGWP refrigerants. Matteo DallOmbra, VRV specialist at Daikin, said refrigerants are key to reducing the carbon footprint of leading air conditioning manufacturers. Daikin has adopted a two-tier strategy for how refrigerants are used and the type of refrigerant specified. Every new product employs the lowest possible GWP refrigerant, which now means the new R-32. This conveys heat efficiently and reduces electricity consumption by approximately 10% compared with air conditioners using refrigerant R-22. For products that cant use R-32, Daikin adopts 100% reclaimed refrigerant. Lower GWP systems will 38 October 2022 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Oct 22 pp38-40, 42 Roundtable.indd 38 26/09/2022 16:07