Smart Office
Not my office at home, but more general, and then how it feeds into smart home.
King's Cross Station Refurbishment
I was involved in the refurbishment project of King's Cross Station, and more specifically the Train Shed Roof.
This was not the first time I was involved with King's Cross Station, but the previous time was with Railtrack just using the Eastern offices, not to do with the refurbishment of the station. The eastern offices were not in the best of condition, and had their own problems. One was a ban on any interaction with the walls. Not even a drawing pin could be pushed into the aged plaster. There was a risk that the plaster of that age had horse hair as part of the mix, to strengthen it. With that came the risk of anthrac. Most defiantly no drilling to put up smart boards, or anything else. The project then was RAMP, a change project with a budget of £800m.
I was asked to be the Great Western Zone’s representative on the Railtrack Asset Management Programme (RAMP) team, based at King's Cross Eastern Offices. The title of Business Implementation Manager was given for what became a multiple role. Representing the Zone and its interests. Expressing the Business needs, in conjunction with the other BIMs, to the programme development teams. Promoting the programme and MIMS asset management system, being the sole conduit for communication and change management for RAMP on the Zone. RAMP was an ambitious programme with a core vision of changing the way Railtrack and it’s Contractors carry out their respective businesses and how they interact. The time scales were very tight and the budget reflected the enormity of the task. The ‘Advanced Value Management’ training that I had recently completed included elements of facilitation, presentation and change management, all of which proved useful.
Tom Windsor, the head of the ORR at the time visited us, liked what he saw, and used it in a speech to the Railway Study Association, of which I was a member, and attended the meeting. Interesting!
Years later, and King's Cross again.
The roof before the refurbishment project already had glazing but a lot of it was obscured by decades of steam engines belching out soot up into the roof, blocking out the sun. The result was a dark platform level which was not an ideal passenger experience.
All the glazing was replaced as part of the roof renovation. All done above a moveable 100% crash deck. Secure enough not only to stop things dropping on passengers on the platforms below, but also to stop the water involved in removing the lead paint from the ironwork, ready for a new paint job.
Part of the discussion was how much Photovoltaic coverage could be used, and how much loss of light there would be at the platform surface. The panels created are not the normal ones that a 100% coverage, but have a pattern of PV and glass to provide 50% translucent.
King’s Cross Solar Project Raising the Bar in Photovoltaic Excellence
Tom Clark
10.17.2012
Extract from article.
King’s cross railway station in London has around 40 million people pass through it every year, but this year there has been an astonishing solar project happening over our heads – literally.
The £1.3 million iconic project is boasting a 240kWp rooftop system, and has carved out the King’s Cross railway solar launch as the biggest solar photovoltaic project in the UK.
This project is part of a much larger £550 million redevelopment programme ongoing at King’s Cross railway with 42 million assigned to the solar roof. To form the roof, 1,392 custom-made glass laminate solar panels were designed and supplied for the relentless and highly-skilled workers to install.
King’s Cross railway is a grade 1 listed building and is now covered with more than 2,300 square metres of state-of-the-art solar panels which will provide an estimated 10% of the total energy usage at Kings Cross. This estimated 10% is 175,000 KWh of solar energy output, and is a massive achievement that will go down in history.
King’s Cross Railway Station Solar Saves Over $160,000 on Utility Costs
by Alyssa Danigelis | Nov 13, 2018
Extract from article.
A solar panel project for historic King’s Cross railway station in London has generated one million kilowatts of electricity so far. The solar is also saving Network Rail £125,000 (around $162,500) in utility costs.
From 2006 to 2012, King’s Cross underwent an extensive £550 million ($714 million) redevelopment that included restoring the original station designed by Lewis Cubitt in 1852, renovating the platforms, and constructing a new western concourse. The massive redevelopment project also called for adding solar panels to the renovated train sheds.
SunDog Energy, part of the Photon Energy group of companies, installed the 240-kWp PV system with an output of around 175,000 kWh of electricity annually. Solar PV cells were integrated into 1,392 glass laminate units forming part of two new barrel-vaulted glass roofing structures over the platforms and concourses, the company said. In all, the panels cover more than 2,300 square meters.
TSP Projects designed the restoration of the station’s double barrel roof, including the installation of “beer mat” solar panels. “Our design both preserved the listed roof and added to its functionality by incorporating blast-proof glass and renewable energy generation,” according to the multidisciplinary engineering consultancy.
King's Cross has now been usurped by Blackfriars Station in terms of solar generation. Read here.
I think there is a display at each station showing the amount of electricity being generated.
Microgeneration does not have to be restricted to railway stations.
Consider an office.
A normal pattern of use would be for office workers to arrive at their place of work in the morning. On a sunny day, in some offices the sun would be driving through the widows and as soon as the worker sat at their desk, they would be up again, closing the blinds and switching on the lights instead. Totally understandably, in my view, as it is difficult to concentrate and work with a distracting bright light in the corner of your eye.
Eventually the sun moves round, and is no longer a problem. However, the blinds stay down and the lights stay on. Further round the building the same process is repeated.
I also know about the end of the day. Last one out of a section of the office, has to go around and secure the building. Closing windows and switching off lights and appliances. This is not a thing you want to be doing when you want to go home, and you are already late, the last one. Sometimes, this process is left to the cleaners, or security. Sometimes, everything is still on when people return in the morning. Weekends are worse. For schools, the wasted power could be even more, with equipment left on for weeks during the holidays until somebody notices.
All this is a huge waste of energy, and not an insignificant cost.
Now that climate change is higher on the agenda and more of a consideration, and the recent escalation of energy costs, there is a greater imperative to reduce this waste.
Some of the solutions are not as new as it may seem.
Office Motion Sensor Lights
A worthwhile little bit of magic. As evening draws in and less people are in the office, the lights start to go off. Eventually, there is only one desk properly illuminated. That then goes out and you have to wave your hands or stand up. Lights back on, and more work to do. Then it is time to go home. The fun part. You walk into the darkness towards the exit, and the lights progressively come on as if your are a superstar, as long as you walk slowly. Your own personal light corridor.
There were protests, many years ago, about tower blocks of offices which left the lights on 24/7. Just vast beacons of light rising into the night sky. Perhaps it was cheaper to leave the lights on all the time than build the switching system to control them. Shops which left their display lights on were also subject to derision.
Smart lighting
I am not a lighting designer, but I suspect that big office blocks, with open plan floors used to be designed with a simple lighting layout. Work out how much light is needed at the darkest part of the floor, probably in the centre furthest away form the windows. That tells you how many lights you need per metre squared, then replicate for the whole floor. A simple pattern, easy to build and maintain.
The image to the right shows an extract from Network Rail indicating different levels of lighting required for different activities. The same applies to offices, ambient lighting is sufficient for the walkways around the office but task lighting is required at a person's desk.
If the office is entirely windowless, i.e. with no other source of illumination, then a standard fixed pattern of lighting can be applied across the floor. However, that is an unlikely situation. The windows will let in light, more or less, dependant upon the weather. Most of the offices I have been in, close to the window, you are unaware that the lights are on, until the sky darkens, for a storm or as night approaches.
If the lights are able to sense how dark it is they can provide sufficient light to achieve the required lighting for the area they serve. Sunny day near the widow, and the lights are automatically off. In the centre of the floor, on an overcast day, they are providing sufficient light for purpose, as set out in the Building Management System.
This can get more complicated if the desk layout is changed, and therefore the walkways could move, and desks endup in what was a walkway, with insufficient task lighting. However, if your buildings BIM model is maintained, including furniture layout and space usage, and that BIM model communicates with the Building Management System, then all is well. Areas are re popursed and the lighting adjusted accordingly, without anybody going close to a light fitting.
There are of course more complicated office layouts than just desks and walkways. Add kitchen, printing, break out, meeting, storage, areas/rooms, all with their own lighting requirements. All accommodated with adjustable automatic lighting via the Building Management System.
The ambient lighting is correct and pleasant across the floor, and the task lighting is appropriate and adequate for those at their desks, all without using more energy than is required by flooding the whole area with the maximum required light, irrespective of other sources. Saving energy, money, and the planet.
Albeit, the initial cost for all the equipment is more expensive that a simple light switch.
In some offices, meeting rooms are painted differently, so you choose which meeting room you want based on what the purpose or subject of the meeting is. I suspect in reality, you just book the meeting room based on which is available, irrespective of the colour. However, with smart house lighting, you can select a mood, or scene and the lighting dimms and changes colour. This could be replicated for a white painted meeting room to achieve the same objective.
Chromatic glass
Chromatic glass is used whenever interiors need protection from sunlight. ICUs, meeting rooms, and airports use this type of glass to keep building occupants safe from glare.
Chromatic glass can be produced with electric lamination methods, making electrochromic glass. Thermochromic glass is made with heat-sensitive lamination, and photochromic glass is made with light-sensitive lamination.
The scenario above no longer applies. When the same person walks into their office in the morning, the glare is automatically sorted by the glass. No excess glass. If it is a meeting room, scheduled for yet another powerpoint presentation, a flick of a switch, or a selection of a scene, and the glass darkens and the lights dim.
With the windows darker the smart lighting described above, compensates by increasing it's output. Providing greater luminance, until the window decides to let more light in. Then, unlike the pulling the blinds situation, the lights automatically respond. No more lighting, and therefore energy use when not required.
Another benefit is that there is no longer a requirement for the installation, cleaning, and maintenance of blinds, as they have no purpose if the chromatic glass serves the purpose.
Curtain Walling
Follow the link to read a detailed explanation of curtain walling.
I have known cases of electrically powered blinds being installed between two layers of glass in curtain walling.
With the chromatic glass option mentioned above, this would be no longer required.
The vision area, or window, could be a mix of chromatic glass and energy efficient glass, helping to control the internal environment. The between vision area, i.e. between floors, could have one skin of photovoltaic panels. The different materials would probably result in a horizontal stripped look. That look may not be considered desirable. Having the same chromatic glass skin would create a consistent external look, but be detrimental to the amount of power generated. However, there is generally a huge amount of glass area which in turn provides a large opportunity for PV panels and the associated, solar energy, even if reduced. Another case of choice between aesthetics and cost, or in this case, cost reduction.
The output is also less than optimum as the probability is for a vertical, or near vertical curtain wall, as opposed to the sloping angle of a house roof, which is closer to an average 90o angle of incidence to the sun. Obviously the angle to the sun changes through the day and throughout the year. Again, with the large areas, the drop in performance still provides significant power generation.
The probability is also that multiple façades of the building would provide multiple orientations of the PV panels. East, in the morning, South during the sun's highest elevation, and West for the evening sun. The West generation would provide the greatest alleviation of Grid congestion, or peak consumption, between 4pm and 7pm. Surprisingly, even North elevations are now being considered as plausible locations for PV panels. Just daylight will now produce some energy, and with high energy prices and considerations of net zero, together with lower panel prices, the equations are becoming more favorable. It would also provide a more consistent look all around the building.
There is therefore the potential to produce a significant amount of free power, (ignoring the capital cost of the PV panels and associated equipment), to aid in the running on the building, and perhaps exporting surplus to the Grid from time to time, mainly sunny days, or perhaps weekends, dependant upon the pattern of usage.
However, something that cannot be ignored is that whist some buildings sprout from the landscape, in splendid isolation, perhaps for many years. Canary Wharf Tower, aka One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London being a case in point, and perhaps less well known St George Wharf Tower (residential), in Nine Elms, London. Almost inevitably, that splendid corner office view, will, over time, be replaced with another similar building obscuring both view and PV generation. The shading calculations would change considerably, and if it were your house, you would probably not proceed with the ultimate level of shading in those particular developments.
Not to do with smart offices, but I have great sympathy for the occupants of residential tower blocks, who paid a premium for the associated view, which years later, changes to the inside of somebody else's flat, or more likely their curtains, just a few metres away. Avoidable only if you are overlooking a main railway line, or road, or right on the bank of a river, or other body of water. Even protected public realm spaces are being considered for development these days. Nothing is safe. To the detriment of the whole.
Smart Power Sockets
Active air flow by design
On the roof
Public realm