A new centre will investigate ways to make high-density buildings, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow tenements, more energy-efficient to reduce carbon emissions, lower heating bills, and introduce more sustainable construction products to the market.
The new Centre for Net-Zero High Density Buildings, awarded £4.5 million in funding from the UK government through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will test its methods in Scotland’s two largest cities, which have the highest proportion of flats in the UK.
Led by the University of Edinburgh, the research partnership includes the universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, West of Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University, and BE-ST – Scotland’s innovation center for a net-zero built environment. The center brings together £5.6 million in investment from industry, education, the public sector, and the community.
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Hosted by the University of Edinburgh’s newly opened Edinburgh Futures Institute, the center will test new prototypes and retrofit buildings with low-carbon materials, heating and cooling systems, and energy storage technologies.
The scheme will focus on buildings that typically house some of the UK’s most economically disadvantaged citizens, including many public sector and key workers. These groups often spend a higher portion of their income on energy bills and are more likely to face health issues related to cold and damp housing.
The center will operate six thematic working groups, managed and led by the participating universities, focusing on areas such as energy generation and storage, modeling and data analysis, EDI, skills and training, and offsite approaches.
The scheme’s recommendations will be shared with industry and government to guide how buildings nationwide are retrofitted to meet net-zero targets.
Caitriona Jordan, associate director of retrofit and energy efficiency at BE-ST, who will lead on industry engagement, said: “Collaboration across industry is essential to driving the transformation needed to achieve our net-zero goals.”
“BE-ST is proud to lead the industry engagement for the new center, working closely with partners to ensure solutions for high-density buildings are effective, financially viable, and scalable.”
“Leveraging our extensive pan-UK industry network, we will support the center in developing innovation projects, including the use of our 70,000 sq. ft. Innovation Campus to manufacture prefabricated wall, floor, roof, and modular technologies co-designed with industry.”
Professor Sean Smith, director of the Centre for Future Infrastructure at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and the School of Engineering, who leads the new center and research teams, said: “There is a critical net-zero challenge for our cities and towns, where densely packed buildings significantly contribute to annual carbon emissions.”
