Green Replica of Buckingham Palace?

Posted under Blog by Ruth

The UK is currently leading in terms of its measures to build efficient properties. However, Buckingham palace – an extremely important landmark for representing the country – is famous for its energy in-efficiency, with reported annual energy bills of £2.2 million.

A London engineering firm has looked into the costs of building a new green replica which would be a beacon of energy efficiency, after the palace last year topped the ‘dirty dozen’ lost of buildings in London that are responsible for large amounts of CO2 emissions.

The Queen has set up a committee to help tackle energy consumption at the palace. According to plans, building a replica would take three and a half years, cost £320 million but would emit 400 cubic tons less CO2 each year than the original.

Whilst this replica isn’t likely to happen, it highlights a number of issues with the original palace itself. Project manager Mathew Fenner explained that a replica would make use of insulation in the walls and energy efficient double glazing to replace 760 windows – which could cut the heat lost by half.

Despite the massive costs involved with building a replica, theoretically it should pay for itself within just a few years due to massively reduced energy bills.

Other energy efficient measures proposed include heat recovery systems, ground source heat pumps, photovoltaic panels and rainwater harvest systems.