Power house

The bright green façade of the Sustainable Building Envelope Centre (SBEC) certainly stands out next to the traditional industrial buildings that populate Deeside, North Wales. Among the steel works, gas turbines and paper mills, Tata Steel and its partners are turning cutting-edge research into innovative products that could help turn buildings into power stations.

Buildings account for around 40 per cent of carbon emissions in the UK, according to the Carbon Trust. The idea behind SBEC – a £6.5m joint venture between industry and academia and part funded by the Welsh government – is that buildings should be seen as a resource for energy, and that traditional materials such as steel can be used to harness this power.

’Roofs and walls are assets, and instead of leaking energy out they should be doing the reverse,’ said SBEC director Daniel Pillai. ’Because energy’s been very cheap in the past, we’ve behaved like fat mammals, gorging ourselves with a lot of energy just to keep ourselves warm. But the lizard is an illustration showing [that] if you’re smart you come out and lie in the sun and you don’t have to eat quite as much.’