Image for a display in the new Coati House, Paignton Zoo. The design of the building saves up to 3.7kg of carbon dioxide every hour, 88.5 kg every day.
CLIENT
Paignton Zoo
PURPOSE
To help educate visitors about energy and energy saving.
DESCRIPTION
Image as part of a large display in the new Coati House, so the building itself can help explain the scale of the savings from its sustainable design.
Paignton Zoo Environmental Park was keen to find a way to use the Carbon Visuals technique to help educate visitors about some aspect of energy and energy saving. The image on the left will form part of a large display in the new Coati House, so the building itself can help explain the scale of the savings from its sustainable design.
Paignton Zoo Environmental Park, is a combined zoo and botanic garden in the South West of England that welcomes over half a million visitors a year. More information here on the coatis at Paignton Zoo.
See the coatis in action here (short Youtube video)
Initial discussions looked at several options, including mapping the carbon footprint of a number of buildings. However we decided to focus on one building where the image could be the central focus of an information panel that explains the contribution the design of the building makes to the Zoo's efforts to minimise its carbon footprint. It will be part of a range of interpretation materials that will together explain how the design of the Coati House relates to energy savings in visitors' own homes.
The sustainable building uses recycled plastic, green oak sleepers, FSC timber and 150mm thick black mountain sheep wool insulation so that heating is not required. It also uses low energy lighting. Without the insulation the Coati House would have needed a 6kW electric heater to keep it warm enough. The image shows the actual volume of CO₂ that would have been emitted on a cold day if the building had been designed differently.
The Zoo is exploring the possibility of creating physical versions of the CO₂ bubbles that visitors can interact with, in the longer term.
This method can be used to visualise the positive implications of energy saving actions in any building. Do contact us if you have a low energy building you would like to highlight in this way.
Details
Power consumption for a regular (non-sustainable) design
Heater: 6,000 W
Lighting: 400 W
Heat lamp: 175 W
Total: 6,575 W
Power consumption of Paignton's new Coati House
Lighting: 146 W
Heat lamp: 175 W
Total: 321 W
Savings
Power saving (on a cold day): 6,254 W
Energy saving (on a cold day): 6.254 kWh every hour / 150.1 kWh every day
DECC conversion coefficient for grid electricity: 0.58982 kg CO₂ / kWh
Carbon saving (on a cold day): 3.7 kg CO₂ per hour / 88.5 kg CO₂ per day
(Density of carbon dioxide gas at standard pressure and 15 °C: 1.87 kg/m3)