Project Overview
Construction
Occupancy
Behavioural models
Demand
Renewable technologies
Conclusion
Team
Acknowledgements
Project Overview
Case Study
Our case study was a proposed holliday community with 52 chalets in total in Craik, in Scottish borders. It could be considered as a themed eco-village. According to the developer, the vision is “to create the first off grid Eco community as an exemplar of similar communities throughout Scotland”. Generally, the community will be built in five phases. However, for the purpose of this project we have focused only on Phase 1, which includes 6 houses. In terms of energy consumption, different material construction options will be explored in order to reduce the space heating requirements, taking into account the embodied energy of each material as well.
Craik project will give us the opportunity of applying our energy demand prediction methodology to a real prototype study and contribute to the research of the feasibility of creating this carbon free community.
It is important to highlight that this Craik Project would be the very first Off-Grid Holiday Community built and one of its main outcomes would be the opportunity to develop a Nationally and Internationally recognised Off-Grid Community that could be used in the future as a model for the next projects of this field. Furthermore, the project could be helpful for remote and island communities in Northern Scotland which do not have direct access to the grid.
As far as the supply options is concerned, it will not be possible to use wind power due to the vibration of the mills could affect a Seismological Recording Station close to the site. Hydro power from a small river in the surroundings will be used for the Craik Courtyard (not included in Phase 1) and hence we will just consider solar power and biomass since the site is located in the middle of a forest. Batteries will be taken into account as storage systems to cover the possible peaks of demand within the year.
Google Earth capture
52 chalets when all the phases will have been completed
The following photos are from the site with direction to North, East, South and West respectively:
