ECO-CULTURE Buildings

The Royal Danish Playhouse, Copenhagen, Denmark

Context

The Royal Playhouse was finished in February 2008 and had its grand opening on 16 February 2008, with the premiere of "Hamlet". The construction started in October 2004, giving a construction time of just over three years. The architect is Arkitektfirmaet Lundgaard og Tranberg A/S, while COWI A/S was the consulting engineer.
The building is around 20,000 m² and has three stages with capacities of 650, 200 and 100 seats. Further, the building has a foyer with a popular public res-taurant, wardrobe, backstage, a rehearsal stage, offices, a library, make-up rooms, dressing rooms and other theatre-related functions. Around 180 persons work in the Playhouse.
During 2009, a total 394 of shows have been performed (or will be performed - status as of 9 November 2009) with a total audience of 109,500. The use of the building has been much more extensive than expected, and the building is already an integrated part of the Danish cultural life. 850 tours of the Playhouse have been conducted with 21,200 guests.
Generally, the building has been designed as a building with low energy con-sumption. The building design includes extensive use of natural ventilation in the foyer and on the third floor where offices, dressing rooms and other staff functions are located. The building is heated and cooled by thermo-active slabs that are serviced by a cooling compressor which can also function as a heat pump. When possible, however, the building uses free cooling from the seawater, which is placed adjacent to the building.

Solutions

Use of renewable energy sources:
An innovative energy concept has been developed for the new Playhouse. The energy concept contains thermal-active structures with energy storage, seawater cooling with heat pump and demand-controlled ventilation.

The aim is to optimize the energy system by the use of surplus heat generated during theatre performances in interaction with the building integrated energy storage, and further to optimize the overall efficiency of the systems by implementing seawater cooling and reversible and interruptible heat pump. This use of renewable energy sources and surplus energy will be controlled by the intelligent BEMS.

"Climate Belt" Energy Storage using Thermo-active slabs:
The thermo-active slabs are linked to the overall energy concept because of the temperature levels close to the room temperature: 5-10°C temperature difference. This means that the system can be used as low-temperature heating and as "little-high-temperature" cooling, depending on the demand in the building. Water filled tubes embedded in the concrete slabs are functioning as both heat and cooling system in the Playhouse. During winter, excess heat from lighting and the audience is stored in the thermal active constructions until the next day. During summer, the building is cooled during the night (free cooling) in order to be ready for use the next day.

Data for one block:
The accumulation inertia of the thermal active slabs means that heating or cooling can be stored in the concrete slabs during night, when the price for electricity for pumps is low (outside peak production period for the power plants), i.e. the use of thermo-active will contribute to the reduction of peak power production, which will improve the efficiency of the electricity production.

Seawater cooling and optimized heat pump:
Due to the location of the Playhouse at the waterfront, it is natural to use seawater for cooling the building. Further by connecting a heat pump to the system, the seawater can be utilized optimally for heating in spring and autumn as well.

Ventilation:
Wherever it has been possible, the Playhouse is ventilated with natural ventilation, which saves energy. Ideal area for natural ventilation is the large foyer and the offices. In the auditoriums, demand-controlled mechanical ventilation is used, in order to assure the amount of fresh air necessary for ensuring the desired level of comfort and quality.

Environmental friendly ("green") concrete:
Environmental friendly concrete has been used for the "climate belt" and will underline the energy savings of the climate belt/seawater solution. ECO buildings should always be built of environmental friendly materials. Denmark is the European leader within the development of environmental friendly concrete, also known as "green concrete".

The environmental concrete has not been used in buildings before, but has been tested - in a slightly different format - at a highway bridge in Denmark. The environmental friendly concrete will reduce the embodied energy of the concrete as well as reduce the CO2 emission generated during the production of the concrete.

Energy data

Energy data and additional results
For The Royal Theatre the contribution to the overall energy savings are:

Thermo active slabs:

• Heat recovering from heat from stage tower: Savings = 57 MWh/year.

Heat pump and seawater cooling:

• Heat pump, Heating: Saving = 250 MWh/year.
• Heat pump, Extra electricity: Increased consumption = 56 MWh/year.
• Seawater cooling, electricity: Savings = 300 MWh/year.
• Annual saving of CO2: 76%.

Intelligent controlled ventilation system - BEMS:

• Heating: Savings = 347 MWh/year.
• Electricity: Savings = 125 MWh/year.
• Annual saving of CO2: 49%.

"Green concrete":

• CO2 saving: 26%.

First Hand experiences

In the Royal Danish Playhouse, focus has been on heat pumps, seawater cooling, thermo-active slabs and the use of environmental concrete. Of the 10 defined target values in the project, six have been achieved directly; one would have been met if the operation time of the building had been as expected. The final three cannot be shown to have been achieved due to a problem in the layout of the cooling central. However, the initial measurements that are available indicate that the last three targets will be met. This includes a reduction in cooling consumption and CO2 emission by 71%, compared to an expected value of 75%. The reduction in heating consumption is 42%, and 67% of the related CO2 emission. This large drop is partially helped by lower emission related to the distributed district heating.
Among the new technologies, especially the combination of thermo-active slabs and heat pumps for heating and cooling using seawater as the reservoir has been adopted in new building projects. Variations of this concept using groundwater or LTES have also been designed in more recent projects.
Finally, even with the impressive results that have already been reached, there is still a potential for improvement. This improvement will be facilitated by the large amount of metering equipment.

Public Project Report

Final Report.pdf

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