How Energy Efficient Is Buckingham Palace?

Buckingham Palace is the official home of the Queen when she’s in London but also plays host to a number of events as well as being a major tourist destination. The palace also houses around 600 full and part-time staff meaning it has to provide heat and power to a massive number of people. Whatever happens, Buckingham Palace is going to use a huge amount of power but what measures have been take to ensure that this landmark building is as energy efficient as possible.

Thermal Imaging:

In recent years, the palace has installed a number of energy saving improvements after thermal imaging was conducted back in 1995 in order to pinpoint major areas from which the building was losing heat. It was discovered that most of the heat was being lost through the windows and skylights and to combat this, double glazing installation was initiated. Making energy efficient improvements to such a historic landmark are not as easy as they would be anywhere else and the palace consults with English Heritage on a monthly basis on any changes that are being made.

Energy Certificates:

A Display Energy Certificate survey was conducted at Buckingham Palace back in 2008 in order to rate it on energy consumption over a 12 month period. The palace achieved an energy rating of ‘C’ which is relatively high for a historic building with ‘A’ being the highest rating available and ‘G’ being the lowest. The energy rating lets the public know about the how the building uses its energy and despite the limit to the amount of energy efficient improvement that can be carried out that everything is being done to ensure it’s as green as possible.

Specialist Energy Management System:

Buckingham Palace has a computerised building management system that controls the heat and power systems and allowing them to be adjusted and review to ensure they are all running as efficiently as possible. The system is very sensitive and even if temperatures outdoors increase slightly then heating inside the building will be reduced to maintain a constant room temperature. There are also specialist systems such as fans in the kitchen that run at different levels automatically depending on activity in the kitchen.

Combined Heat & Power (CHP):

The palace also utilises two CHP systems two maximise efficiency by ensuring any heat that would usually be lost is collected and used elsewhere in the building.

Lighting:

As you can imagine, Buckingham Palace has a huge number of lights from desk lamps to enormous chandeliers. All of these combined have a huge potential for energy usage and therefore wastage. To combat the potential inefficiency, the palace utilises everything from energy efficient bulbs to the latest LED lighting technologies.

By: James Driffield

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

If you’re thinking about getting new windows installed in your home, get a free uPVC window quote from Safestyle UK.