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NW Bicester - sustainability within a budget
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The new NW Bicester eco-town contains so many sustainable elements that it will be a net energy provider to the grid. But this had cost implications for a scheme that must be commercially viable to succeed.
NW Bicester - sustainability within a budget

Steve Hornblow had a problem. NW Bicester eco-town’s project director was facing an unusual dilemma with the development’s energy infrastructure: it simply had too many sustainable features.

The new homes in the first phase of this ambitious low-carbon housing scheme all have solar PV panels on their roofs, with energy supplied by a central CHP plant. This reversed the usual equation for housing developers of how to supply power to their homes. Rather, Mr Hornblow and his team had to work out how to export the excess energy they would generate. “We were told that if it was a sunny day and we had the CHP turned on, we would fry the network in Bicester, as it wouldn’t be able to cope,” he says. “As a net provider of energy, we’ve had to upgrade the infrastructure – and that has cost us an awful lot of money.”

This is just one example of the lengths A2 Dominion is going to in its attempts to make NW Bicester the most sustainable large-scale housing development yet built in the UK. The housing provider is leading on the masterplan for the site, which will see up to 6,000 homes built and an equal number of jobs created in, constructed in strategically timed phases.

In addition, four primary schools, a secondary school and retail and commercial areas will also be built. Phase one, known as the Exemplar Phase, is currently under construction. Willmott Dixon is the main contractor on site. This first phase will see the team build 393 homes, with the first residents expected to move in in around June this year.

The housing provider has submitted two other outline planning applications to Cherwell District Council for the construction of a further 3,500 homes. These are coupled with a detailed planning application for the infrastructure to support the site – the road network, energy substations and other necessary elements.

Mr Hornblow believes the NW Bicester development is unique in the UK. “It’s the only scheme in the UK to be built to true zero carbon,” he says. The definition of zero carbon as set out by the Zero Carbon Hub covers a building’s regulated energy only. But NW Bicester’s homes will be zero carbon once so-called ‘unregulated’ energy – that used by people in the home and produced by electrical appliances – is taken into account as well.

This advanced definition is being achieved through the use of a central CHP plant, which will provide heating and hot water to the homes via a district heat network.

A2 has also maximised the roof space available to incorporate the aforementioned solar PV panels, with an average of 34 sq m on every home. These elements combine to make this the greenest housing scheme of its size yet seen on these shores, Mr Hornblow says. Similar measures are being taken on smaller sites, but not on other developments of this scale.

One big lesson Mr Hornblow is taking forward to the next phases of the scheme is on cost. As he says, no-one else had previously attempted a scheme like this, with so many elements coming together on such a large scale, so there was no-one else to approach to glean lessons from.

“I’m sure people will come to us in future, but as the first it has led to challenges and has probably made it more costly than otherwise,” he says. The unexpected upgrades to infrastructure to allow energy to be exported were also an issue – and something the company didn’t “cotton onto originally”.

“Having so much solar PV caused us some real difficulties with the infrastructure,” he says. “We’re there to make a profit; it’s not an experimental scheme that’s getting government funding or anything like that. We’ve ended up having to build four substations and upgrade the local network considerably to get that energy away – that’s something we’ve never had to do on another scheme before.”

This reflects the tension that can still occasionally exist between sustainability and cost, though Mr Hornblow insists the scheme has always had commercial values in mind.

“We’ve always been very clear that this is a commercial venture,” he says.

And that is the key to building truly sustainable developments: doing it in such a way that it still makes money for developers, while not leading to increased costs for the customer. This is something NW Bicester is well on the way to achieving.


Credits:: Daniel Kemp - Construction News

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