The Hillsley Road demonstration project in Portsmouth, UK, has sought to redevelop an existing redundant building site, situated in a difficult urban area in the immediate proximity of a major motorway. The development consists of eight new houses, one apartment and a retail shop. The development was designed to be constructed in a manner that not only performs well in terms of energy consumption and environmental impact but also to provide comfortable dwellings that overcome the problems of noise and air pollution. Moreover, the Portsmouth City Council has an overriding objective to provide homes with an adaptability that complies with changing needs of inhabitants, regardless of age or degree of mobility.

The demonstration project will be monitored and evaluated, i.e. by a survey of the tenants’ satisfaction, and will hopefully serve as inspiration to other densely populated urban areas, which seek to redevelop polluted and problematic building sites. Redevelopment of such sites can serve economic and social purposes as well as environmental.

The construction utilises sustainable housing technologies in an architectural, environmental and economic optimal way, which includes energy measures such as solar collection, renewable electricity sources, heat recovery ventilation systems as well as under floor ventilation of the sunspace conservatory. The technologies are implemented in conjunction with more “passive” low energy measures, such as extensive insulation, passive solar design, low energy lightning, and internal shutters.

Below some interesting aspects for inspiration to other builders:

• Noise reduction measures to improve living conditions
• Air infiltration and PV assisted exhaust ventilation with heat recovery
• Solar water heating for domestic hot water
• Materials with minimal environmental impact
• Lifetime homes which adapt to changing needs

General information on the technologies:
CHP
District heating
Solar water collectors
EMS
Ventilation and Heat Exchange
PV-modules

Monitoring Scheme:

Building period:	Work started: (August 2001) September 2003
	Work finised: March 2004
Monitoring period:	March 2004 - February 2005
Monitoring results:	At the moment it is only possible to present some initial results regarding the heat recovery ventilation system (HRV). The monitoring of the HRV unit efficiencies was made just after installation prior to taking up residence, but his should not affect the results.
	Parameter	House A1	House A3
	Heat recovery efficciency:   Fresh air inlet temp.- Outdoor temp.      Indoor temp. - Outdoor temp.	0.85	0.53
	Electricity use:	21.6 at 136 m3/h	172.8 with electrical after heating
	Type of HRV unit:	EcoVent L400	ABB
Comments:	With a thermal efficiency of 0.85 the EcoVent L400 HRV unit performs very well, while the cross flow ABB unit with an efficiency of 0.53 is not as good, but still quite typical for a cross flow HRV unit. As to the electricity use the ABB unit has a very high use. This is partly due to not the fans not being so effective, but the main reason is believed to be connected to the electrical after heating which works as frost protection. Since the outdoor temperature was at least 5-6o C this should not be in operation.
Lessions Learned	With the realised project in Portsmouth there is now a local reference on sustainable and energy efficient building which also involves RES technologies like passive solar design, solar DHW and PV panels. An important lesson learned was that there are many obstructions towards new ways of realising housing projects in the UK, leading to higher costs because of the uncertainty of using new technologies. It has however, still been possible to realise a very interesting housing project with a few less housing units based on the original anticipated budget. Here also but with interesting results in relation to the introduction of innovative technical solutions from other European Green Cities partners which are in practice compared to the more normal standard concerning these technologies in the UK. This is especially true for the chosen ventilation solutions. The demonstration project in Portsmouth is both very interesting due to the used concepts of sustainable and energy efficient building and also due to the urban approach where difficult problems concerning especially noise and pollution are handled in an optimised way as part of the sustainable building approach, e.g. taking fresh air into the dwellings from the far side of the housing units and preheating it in the ground.

Further information:

Contact Person / Builder	Portsmouth City Council Karl Allen Housing Services Civil Offices, Guildhall Square Portsmouth PO1 2AX United Kingdom Phone: +44-2392 841752 Fax: +44 –2392 834523 e-mail: karl.allen@portsmouthcc.gov.uk
Architects	Robert Benn & Associates 196/198 London Road Portsmouth PO2 9JE e-mail: mail@rba-uk.co.uk www.rba-uk.co.uk
Quantity Surveyor	P.H.Warr and Partners
Environmental Consultants	Arup Environmental and Atelier10
Thermal Modelling	Atelier 10 Ltd 19 Perseverance Works 38 Kingsland Road London E2 8DD Phone: +44 171 436 2472 E-mail: a10@ateliereng.com
Contractors	PMC Construction Ltd 106 Queens Road Portsmouth PO2 7NE e-mail: mailus@pmcconstruction.co.uk www.pmcconstruction.uk
Site Clearance/ Demolition	English Partnership