EVENTS | ASHRAE WINTER CONFERENCE ACCELERATING CHANGE The use of emerging technology will speed the delivery of net zero buildings, according to CIBSE President-elect Adrian Catchpole, who was one of the speakers in a CIBSE seminar at the ASHRAE Winter Conference in Atlanta. Tim Dwyer reports T he CIBSE ASHRAE liaison committee supported a seminar at the 2023 ASHRAE Winter Conference in Atlanta, titled Accelerating change in building design and operation towards a decarbonised and net zero energy future. It considered a cross-section of skills, tools, systems and methods that are driving buildings towards net zero. Two of the presentations touched on a common theme and are briefly reported in this article. Adrian Catchpole, CIBSE President-elect, spoke on how the application of contemporary tools and emerging technologies may be used to deliver energy efficient, environmentally responsible projects. He argued that the key starting point was to ensure a clear direction in the brief, and although not rocket science it might require the design team to take the client on the journey. The whole team needs to carefully consider and discuss desired project outcomes, and establish clear success factors that can be used to measure key work stages to ensure the project is delivered effectively. The monitoring of key outcomes can feed a collaborative process of feedback and continuous improvement throughout the whole life of the project. When the goals have been defined properly, the dynamic simulation model begins to emerge a developing 3D representation of the building that reflects shape, form and hygrothermal characteristics, providing the core model, preferably based on a common date environment (CDE). The model can be used to run numerous simulations, optimisations, daylight modelling, overheating assessments, compliance checks, systems evaluations, life-cycle evaluations, and so on. 26 April 2023 www.cibsejournal.com Catchpole said the model should underpin the whole life of the project and then move onto the clients asset team for commissioning, post-occupancy operation, and maintenance. He noted that, typically, a concluding simulation by the design team would provide a prediction of energy use in operation, based on the final building and systems, as represented by the model. This increasingly accurate assessment of the predicted energy use, informed by CIBSE TM54, requires information relating to the operational phase such as lift information and catering specialist equipment. This provides a better interpretation of the likely energy consumption and typically gives a higher figure than Fully volumetric modular construction was used on a Shetland hotel project