Armstrong Point Business Park has been awarded the title of ‘Best Industrial Building of 2013’ by BREEAM in its annual awards, the results of which were announced this week at Ecobuild.
The facility, which is located in Wigan, was designed to be the UK’s first zero-energy cost business park and is one of only 17 international buildings to have received the accolade – alongside the home of the British Prime Minister, number 10 Downing Street.
CA Building Products supplied both its SolarWall and TwinTherm solutions for the project which together played an instrumental role in achieving the facility’s ‘Outstanding’ rating, which requires a BREEAM score of 85% or above.
Project development engineer, Andrew Brewster, is responsible for the sustainable and environmental delivery of projects for CA Group. He explained: “Armstrong Point is a shining example of what is possible when forward thinking developers and building owners put sustainability at the top of their wish-list and work with the right team to deliver their vision.
“The result is a win-win situation for all parties: The developer has an appealing facility which ticks the boxes of environmental and sustainable responsibility as well as delivering demonstrable long-term cost savings; the tenant benefits from free, clean energy, dramatically lowering their monthly outgoings and, crucially, the impact on the environment is significantly reduced.”
Armstrong Point comprises three new-build industrial premises housing a total of nine individual units. Each unit is clad in CA Building Products’ Twin-Therm® built up roof and wall system, which provides a fully-walkable, cost effective solution offering a high degree of flexibility and exceptional air tightness levels as well as being delivered as a carbon neutral envelope.
The Twin-Therm system uses Therma-quilt man-made mineral fibre insulation, which is non-flammable and complies with UNEP’s (United Nations Environmental Programme) environmental recommendations against the use of CFCs, HFCs, HCFCs or VOCs.
The Twin-Therm cladding system, with Therma-quilt insulation, has been classified by the Green Guide to Specification as having an A+ rating, this means that its specification alone automatically provides a positive contribution to the building’s overall BREEAM score.
In addition, the system comes with a 25 year guarantee, covering the manufacture and design of the roof and wall cladding systems including all of the components supplied and manufactured by CA Building Products such as, profiled sheets, flashings, gutters, fasteners, sealants, insulation, spacers, etc. This project incorporated the full Confidex Guarantee.
Each of the nine units is also fitted with CA Group’s SolarWall Transpired Solar Collector (TSC) which provides a truly renewable heat source. The technology is easy to install and has been identified as having the lowest capital cost, highest known efficiency (up to 80%) and quickest return on investment of any active solar technology currently available – with an estimated payback period as low as three years.
Installed as an additional skin to the building’s southerly facing elevations, the SolarWall technology works by harnessing the sun’s energy to pre-heat fresh outside air which is then drawn into building’s heating system, providing a supply of fresh ventilated air and considerably reducing the building’s reliance on fossil fuels. The SolarWall system is expected to save Armstrong Point tenants the equivalent of 15.5 tonnes of CO2 per annum.
SolarWall technology is supported by the RETScreen® Solar Air Heating project model, the only independent software package for the analysis of the Transpired Solar Collector technology. Developed by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), in association with NASA, UNEP and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the program can be used to assess the viability of projects worldwide, from large-scale industrial developments and process heating, to smaller scale residential applications. The RETScreen® software is specific to the SolarWall technology and uses empirical test data and performance curves that have been obtained over many years of independent testing.
Brewster concluded: “We are extremely proud to say that our products have enabled the business park to achieve such an environmental accolade and hope that other ambitious developers will see Armstrong Point as the gold standard for future developments of this kind.”
The business park also features a wind turbine, photovoltaic panels, solar water heating and air source heat pumps.
