One Canada Square, Canary Wharf

One Canada Square is an iconic office tower and centrepiece of the Canary Wharf development in London’s Docklands. It is the third tallest building in the United Kingdom at 235m above ground level, and contains 50 storeys. This glass-clad building was designed by Cesar Pelli and completed in 1991.

Energy savings

Cost savings

Carbon savings

Background

From April 2027, in compliance with the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) all commercial landlords of private rented non-domestic properties in England will need to have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of ‘C’ or higher. Not making improvements to meet MEES targets may lead to compliance failure, penalties, depreciation of asset value and issues securing future lease agreements.

The building is one of the largest office building in the UK 150,000m² of office space over 50 floors with extensive glass elements providing excellent natural light and stunning views across the City.

Based on a Level 5 Commercial EPC carried out by our associates, Energi IQ were then commissioned to complete an EPC Plus Improvement Report for the landmark building. The report put forward several site-specific measures for improving the building’s existing substandard ‘F’ rated EPC to a compliant ‘C’ rated EPC.

The Challenges

The challenges of improving the EPC rating included:

• The reliance on a dated gas fired Variable Air Volume (VAV) HVAC system and inefficient Air Handling plant
• Existing tubular fluorescent lighting

Our Approach

For a building of this size and complexity, it is more appropriate to use DSM (Dynamic Simulation Modelling) instead of the standard SBEM (Simplified Building Energy Model). By using DSM to model the building in 3D, more detailed information on the building — including hour by hour profiles, solar reflection & gain, internal heat transfer between spaces, dynamic weather data and complex HVAC systems can be more accurately modelled. From this a Baseline EPC Rating of F140 was established.

Using the Baseline model as the starting point for the EPC Plus Improvement analysis, several individual measures where analysed in the DSM software to improve the EPC rating.

Where possible we aimed to recommend measures that will have minimal disruption to the day to day occupants of the building.

We then analysed cumulatively combining the individual measures in order to show the overall effect of implementing multiple measures together. Determining the optimum combination strategy requires modelling scenarios that reflects the most appropriate prioritisation criteria such as cost and EPC point improvement.

The final report also provided indicative capital costs for these measures along with estimated payback periods for implementing the improvement measures.

Outcomes

By implementing all proposed measures the building could realistically achieve an ‘C’ rated EPC. These measures included:

Key Takeaway

This project highlights the importance of undertaking DSM Modelling for complex buildings to produce the most accurate Commercial EPC ratings.

The EPC Plus Improvement Report gives the client a menu of measures to implement that would avoid future compliance failure with impending legislation for Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) for Non-Domestic Buildings in England.

We also carried out EPC Plus Improvement Reports for 40 Bank Street and 50 Bank Street in Canary Wharf as part of the same project portfolio.

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