We have the Largest Concentration of World Leading Low Energy Buildings.

UEA has been at the forefront of low energy building procurement and operation for some 15 years starting with the Elizabeth Fry Building, completed in 1994. The Chartered Institute for Building Service Engineers in 1998 asked if this was ‘the best building ever’. It won a CIBSE Probe Award for its energy performance coupled with the best occupier satisfaction score.

UEA has continued with its low energy strategy ever since and as a consequence won the first ever Low Energy Building of the Year Award in 2005 for the Zuckerman Institute for Connective Environmental Research building. Two other buildings, using the same concept of active internal thermal mass coupled with highly insulated envelopes, are also of far above the UK standard energy performance for office/academic buildings.

Ignoring occupancy rates and the like, the Elizabeth Fry Building remains the best performing building on a basic energy input per square metre basis, giving proven low energy operation (35-40kwh/m2/annum heat and 65-75kwh/m2/annum electricity). It is saving approximately 80 tonnes of CO2 per annum against recognised benchmarking levels for a naturally ventilated 3000 square metre building (ECON 19 DETR 1998b). If it is accepted that active high thermal mass well insulated buildings with night cooling provide comfort levels equal with typical air conditioned buildings, the comparison is much starker. For a building of the same size as the Elizabeth Fry Building the saving amounts to over 200 tonnes of CO2 per annum.