Output details

Testing energy efficiency in urban regeneration

This refereed paper analyses the application of three energy strategies recommended in planning guidance developed by Lancaster City Council for a flagship regeneration project, Luneside East, involving testing the performance of these strategies - energy efficient building envelope, passive solar design principles and generation of renewable energy - in future scenarios. Research was undertaken as part of the £3.1m EPSRC SUE 2 Urban Futures Project, where Coles was CI leading the work-package looking at Open Space and Energy using the ‘Urban Futures’ methodology which Lancaster City Council adopted as an appropriate critical approach highly suited to assessing their planning options, demonstrating a key project outcome of knowledge exchange. The methodology analyses the resilience of each energy strategy based on long term perspectives regarding the necessary conditions to achieve/build resilience, with discussion regarding how each solution impacts upon other aspects of the development.

Four ‘future scenarios’ were applied to test solutions -Market Forces, Policy Reform, New Sustainability Paradigm and Fortress World, developed in the parent research, with in depth analysis of the parameters relating to the development plans for Luneside East, considering the extent to which solutions were vulnerable or resilient. Analysis identifies links, synergies and conflicts arising among diverse urban elements initiating discussion regarding the multiple benefits that interventions can yield. Research is set in the wider context of planning and energy guidance, building requirements and renewable energy technologies, to consider each energy strategy and measures needed to introduce resilience. Findings include- the need for specifying specific rather than generic definitions of energy efficiency, that the strategies must be considered as part of a holistic approach to planning and testing solutions, that current guidance may be insufficient in coping with future changed circumstances; it makes recommendations regarding the options, e.g. building layout/orientation, organisational and community factors.