RENAISSANCE - City of Bracknell 

Bracknell is, with Lyon and Zaragoza, one of the main cities involved in the RENAISSANCE project.

Description

The deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) in Bracknell, located 20 miles from central London, exceeds the current European objectives of 12%. RENAISSANCE achieves large scale integration of RES into decentralised local energy supplies. Technologies deployed include bio-mass heat and power generation, solar and small-scale wind.

The RENAISSANCE project in Bracknell delivers state of the art energy efficiency (EE) demonstrations in 27,500 of floor space, achieving high levels of performance, which is 20% above those specified in the current UK building Regulations and European building Directive. This is based on combining:

innovative and low-energy architecture,

construction based on bioclimatic/passive solar design,

retrofitting innovative technologies and materials,

integration of efficient technological solutions and renewable energy technologies,

- innovative building management systems and new energy management practices.

The demonstration activity in Bracknell involves a high level of integration of EE and RES. This is achieved by the coordination of the energy service provision with the construction and refurbishment of buildings in the town centre to ensure an optimal cost effective technical solution.

Innovation and Monitoring

Bracknell is also a flagship project in the UK featuring several specific innovations. These include:

• the integrated approach to the provision of a range of energy services,
• a sophisticated energy flow monitoring system, which aims to optimise the balance of energy generation, energy flows and distribution losses over short timescales so that the efficiency of the network and saving of carbon dioxide relative to conventional systems can be calculated and maximised.

In addition the project will demonstrate novel commercial structures to deliver woodchip to the energy centre and, via a special commercial body, the Energy Services Company (ESCo), to deliver locally managed secure energy services to customers.

BRACKNELL FACTS AND FIGURES:

	Estimated population involved:	110,000
	Approximate geographical area coverage:	approximately 110 km²
	Approximate energy saving:	45GWh/yr
	Approximate energy from RES:	30% of electricity and 40% heating/cooling