Gloucester Cathedral to install commercial sized solar PV system on its roof

Gloucester Cathedral, a building famous for hosting the Coronation of King Henry III, being the final resting place of King Edward II, and, more recently, appearing in three Harry Potter films and an episode of Sherlock, is set to become the oldest cathedral in the UK to install a commercial sized solar PV system on its roof.

Thanks to money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Gloucester Cathedral is about to undergo a £6million development project with the installation of solar PV front and center. Mypower, a Gloucestershire-based company, was awarded the contract to add 150 solar panels to the roof of the Cathedral. Specifically, the panels will be added to the 30-meter high Nave roof, which was built almost 1,000 years ago, and will be impossible to see from the surrounding area.

The Church of England’s Shrinking the Footprint campaign wants to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. The Cathedral’s new 42kW solar array will contribute to the overall goal of the Church of England by reducing energy costs by 25% for the historic structure.

There are some significant shading issues, however, due to the Cathedral’s design. Mypower used animated graphics to demonstrate the shading at different times of the day and year in order to find the right balance between capital cost and electricity yield.

In early October, Mypower will begin installing the panels with commissioning following four weeks later.

With over fifty percent of the population already living in urban areas, cities must grapple with the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change (think: Superstorm Sandy in New York). In a new report, Jones Lang LaSalle has identified steps cities can take to make their infrastructure more resilient to changing climate conditions.

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Nation's largest net-zero K-12 school among winners of 2013 Best of Green Schools award

The Lady Bird Johnson Middle School in Irving, Texas, was named a winner of USGBC's annual award, along with nine other schools, individuals and communities working toward the common goal of healthy, high-performing learning places.

| Dec 10, 2013

16 great solutions for architects, engineers, and contractors

From a crowd-funded smart shovel to a why-didn’t-someone-do-this-sooner scheme for managing traffic in public restrooms, these ideas are noteworthy for creative problem-solving. Here are some of the most intriguing innovations the BD+C community has brought to our attention this year.

| Dec 9, 2013

What is life cycle cost optioneering?

Life cycle cost optioneering is a way of assessing alternative design options, analyzing their long-term capital and operational costs to identify those with the lowest price tag, over the entire life cycle.

The newly opened UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Medical Building consists of two wi

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LEED for Healthcare offers new paths to green

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| Nov 25, 2013

Manufacturers race to offer EPDs, HPDs in response to LEED v4

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Health Product Declaration Collaborative to develop protocol for third-party verification of HPDs

Seven leading product sustainability assessment companies partner with the HPD Collaborative to develop the verification and quality assurance protocols.

| Nov 19, 2013

Top 10 green building products for 2014

Assa Abloy's power-over-ethernet access-control locks and Schüco's retrofit façade system are among the products to make BuildingGreen Inc.'s annual Top-10 Green Building Products list.