Professor John Dyson spent more than 25 years at GlaxoSmithKline, eventually ending his career as VP, Head of Capital Strategy and Design, where he focussed on developing a long-term strategic approach to asset management..

Advanced heat solutions represent excellent complementary technologies to wind and solar power, as these renewables face real challenges.For example, low density means that in order to harness enough energy to power the UK, we would need to build a solar farm of an impossibly large size.

Renewables also have problems to do with dispatch power and consistency, as well as challenges with site locations.Last summer, which was a still and cloudy one, wind and solar simply didn’t generate as much energy as we would have liked, and at this stage, all of the easiest, most suitable sites (the ones which may have access to transmission, and are very suited to wind and solar projects), have already been taken.. Interestingly, while energy systems modelling for wind and solar power often shows a hockey stick curve, as if the upward trajectory of deployment will continue undeterred, in actual fact, this isn’t the case.Over time, we find that the hockey stick turns into an S shaped curve instead.

In other words, renewables are getting progressively harder to do.In fact, the more we build, the more challenging renewable energy becomes..

In addition, public resistance to building out an ever increasing amount of infrastructure is mounting, and this resistance is happening before the conversation even turns to transmission, which, Gogan says, is very difficult to build, as it’s hard to make the case that people will directly benefit from things such as the creation of jobs.

This results in real challenges over land use.. And yet, the net zero transition is undoubtedly going to require a large amount of new infrastructure to be built, raising big questions about where to build it.In addition, it may be necessary to separate lab HVAC systems from other parts of the building..

The top priority should be to optimise the HVAC design with a view to reducing the amount of plant and riser space required.Techniques such as transferring extract air from adjacent office spaces to partially make-up the new lab supply can sometimes be used, however their compliance must be carefully reviewed..

Even with an optimised design it is likely that new, larger HVAC plant and additional ductwork will be required.For some office buildings this can be difficult to incorporate, with limited roof, external, riser, and ceiling void space available.