World’s most sustainable residential tower launches in London

October 21, 2016 / Isla MacFarlane
World’s most sustainable residential tower launches in London

Lumiere Developments claims that The Beacon’s energy conservation technologies will save residents up to £11,000 a year in living expenses. Located in Hemel Hempstead, the 17-storey tower will generate heat and power from on-site renewable energy.

The building’s energy-generating and water retention capabilities mean household bills will be vastly reduced. Lumiere Developments says that the building will generate enough power for it to be able to offer ‘Free Energy For Life’ to residents.

“The Beacon is the result of a number of years of extremely hard work by everyone at Lumiere and our partners in the design and planning, to deliver the world’s most sustainable residential tower,” said Ambi Singh, Commercial Director of Lumiere Developments. “Sustainability is at the forefront of everything we do and we wanted to marry emission free renewable technologies with simple yet effective energy conservation strategies to create a zero emission development that is truly world class in its architectural design, engineering and specification.”

Homeowners will also benefit from an in-house electric car and electric bike share scheme, the first of its kind at a residential development in the UK, as well as on-site waste compaction and recycling facilities.

The development includes the UK’s largest automated underground car parking system, operated and managed by Swiss-funded Skyline Parking. Cutting CO2 emissions by 80% compared to a standard car park, the automated system uses mechanical technology to reduce the average parking time by 50% and even the best car insurance by up to 20%.

“Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the world’s harmful emissions and the World Health Organisation quotes air pollution as the number one risk to human health responsible for 7 million premature deaths worldwide,” said Singh. “Hence, it is our mission to promote large-scale uptake of emission-free renewable energy generation and simple energy conservation technologies within residential new-builds and old stock to significantly reduce emissions and by default help save lives.

“Using The Beacon as a blueprint for zero-carbon residential development, we will be rolling out this unique mixture of sustainable technology and building practice across our future projects and ultimately hope that we inspire other developers to build significantly more high-quality sustainable homes across the property spectrum from affordable to luxury.”

Among its green credentials, The Beacon features:

  • The highest density solar farm in the world (0.8mw on <0.5 acres);
  • Solar photovoltaic panels – embedded into the solar balustrades at each floor level;
  • Triple-glazing – to all apartments;
  • Quadruple-glazing – to upper level apartments;
  • Ground Source Heat Pumps – to extract heat from the basement of the building to heat the hot water;
  • Air Source Heat Pumps to extract heat from the atrium;
  • 100% rainwater harvesting (collected at roof and balcony levels) for toilet flushing and irrigation of the green planters on each external balcony and internal arboretum;
  • MHVR – Mechanical Heat and Ventilation Recovery System – to ventilate apartments and create comfort cooling;
  • Thermal emissivity of less than 0.2W/M2K;
  • UK’s tallest residential indoor arboretum.
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