The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design

Appendix 2
or technique. The annual abatement cost is the net social cost or benefit of abating 1
tonne of carbon dioxide in a particular way. A negative cost shows an overall social
benefit. The persistence factors are the lifetime of the abatement for each technology
or technique, recognising that technologies require replacement before the end of life
for a building project.
From table 3 it can be determined that the average cost of carbon abatement
using the range of techniques included in the McKinsey evaluation is £20/tCO2.
Since the marginal benefit of the project is the change to using techniques
for energy conservation that have a net benefit it is necessary to evaluate the
difference from the baseline above. This is achieved by weighting the abatement
potential derived from the McKinsey curves which represent the total abatement
possible and not that which is achievable under the business as usual scenario.
In order to model the difference between the business as usual abatement
potential and the potential including the benefit of graduates from Centres
of Excellence, the McKinsey values have been weighted to reflect the limited
ability of current practitioners to fully realise the abatement potential of certain
technologies. The weightings are explained further below.
Table 4: Weightings used to adjust the McKinsey /CBI MAC curve for current
practitioners and for building engineering physics graduates working in the field.
Current practitioner Current practitioner COE graduate COE graduate notes
abatement weight cost weight abatement weight cost weight
Building envelopes 0.5 1 1 1 Current practitioners do not fully
utilise the potential of building
envelope.
Lighting 1 1 1.2 1 Graduates will move beyond low
energy lamp replacement to use
daylight
Cavity wall Insulation 1 1 1 1
Condensing boilers 1 1 1 1
Zero-carbon homes 1 1 1 -0.1 Graduates will avoid active
technologies hence a saving of
10% on maintenance
Solid wall insulation 1 1 0.1 0.1 Graduates will have limited
involvement with solid wall
insulation
Floor insulation 1 1 0 1 Graduates will not apply floor
insulation
Solar water heating 1 1 0.01 0 Graduates will have limited
involvement with solar water
heating
The weighting of abatement potential is used to show how we predict the
building engineering physics graduates to be able to provide either more
abatement than McKinsey has predicted, or less. The weighting of cost indicates
an assessment of the additional benefits of adopting the least cost solutions
within a range included in the McKinsey predictions.
• A weighting of one indicates no change from the McKinsey abatement
potential or abatement cost;
• a fractional weighting is applied where the assessment of costs or benefits is
lower than the McKinsey prediction. In other words graduates from Centres
of Excellence would not be responsible for achieving the entire abatement
potential;
The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design 57