81-103 King’s Road is a proposed 17,000m2 mixed use development located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. KJ Tait developed an Energy Strategy that would conform with the London Plan 2021 requirements for new developments to achieve Net Zero Carbon in operation.

Following the Energy Hierarchy, the following measures were implemented at the Be Lean stage to ensure energy use is minimised:

• High performance fabric in line with LETI standards, including an exemplary standard of air tightness.
• Glazing solar control balanced between reducing overheating and providing good levels of daylighting.
• Mixed mode ventilation to the upper floors, taking advantage of the building form to provide cross ventilation.
• Energy efficient LED lighting with daylighting control.
• Energy efficient fans and pumps.

Together, these measures resulted in a 32% reduction in carbon emissions compared to the Building Regulations Part L2A baseline, achieving compliance with the London Plan 2021 policy.

To provide the building’s heating, cooling and hot water load, air source heat pumps were selected as a low carbon solution. A PV array, maximised over the available roof space and covering approximately 400m2, was included at the Be Green stage.

The building’s heating and cooling system is enabled to facilitate connection to a future off-site energy network.

In total, a 53% saving in carbon emissions was achieved through our low energy solutions, exceeding the London Plan policy of at least a 35% saving.

A new stage of the Energy Hierarchy introduced within the London Plan 2021 is the Be Seen stage. This mandates that Major Developments monitor and report actual energy usage once the building is in operation. We specified a comprehensive metering system to ensure that the building will be well measured to assist in complying with this policy. We also developed a CIBSE TM54 energy assessment model to estimate the in-use energy.