“Most sustainable building in London” to use 25% recycled biodiesel
A building termed the “most sustainable in London” plans to provide a quarter of its power from recycled biodiesel.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers More London building, near Tower Bridge, will use biodiesel powered ‘tri-generators’ to generate 25% of the electricity, heating and cooling requirements for the 48,000m2 office.
The generators will require 45,000 litres of B100 recycled biodiesel a month, which the company is planning to source locally through biodiesel manufacturer Uptown Oil.
PricewaterhouseCoopers head of facilities services Jon Barnes told MRW: “The proposal is to try and source that locally, so we’ll source vegetable oil from local restaurants and hotels from as small an area as possible – just around the London area, near to More London and just into the city.
“If you’re not careful you can buy B100 fuel from suppliers, but it’s been across to Europe and back again in tankers and quite frankly it’s probably easier to put straightforward diesel in - it’s probably a lower carbon footprint. So if you’re going to do this you need to be careful where you source it and where you refine it so we can keep the whole footprint down.”
Although the building cannot support a higher percentage of biodiesel, due to space restrictions, Barnes explained that the company would consider employing the fuel in other PricewaterhouseCooper facilities, if it proved successful.
Barnes added: “We are a leader in the field of finance, but we need to be responsible in the fields of sustainability. We need to show that we’re doing it, not just talking about it. We’ve got to lead by example, and show we’re prepared to put the costs up front, because it does cost a lot of money to do these things, it’s not cheaper to use recycled energy like this, it’s more expensive.
“We just received the BREEAM outstanding award, and I believe it’s the most sustainable building in London at the moment, it’s important.”
The More London building is due to open March 2011.
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