28 May 2021CERC to present at the UK's LGTAG President's conference

The Local Government Technical Advisers Group (LGTAG) President's conference will be held over three days online between 15^th and 17^th June 2021.

CERC is sponsoring Day 1 / Session 2 of the event and giving a presentation on Air Quality Modelling for Kensington & Chelsea, carried out by the CERC consultancy team to support Kensington & Chelsea's decision-making for Air Quality Action Plans and planning applications.

There are both morning and afternoon sessions on the 15^th and 16^th June, and a final session on the 17^th June. Topics to be covered include air quality, climate change and active travel. More details will be coming shortly, but you can save the date or register now if you wish.

14 May 2021Modelling the temperature impact of cold plumes

CERC was commissioned to carry out a novel assessment of the impact of plumes of cold air from an array of Air Source heat Pumps (ASHPs) on the surrounding air temperature.

In work commissioned by Sustainable Energy Ltd, the CERC consultancy team used ADMS 5 and the dense gas dispersion model GASTAR to carry out dispersion modelling of the plumes of cold air. A single elevated jet, representing the emissions from a single ASHP unit, was represented in each model, and plume centreline height and temperature were output.

The ADMS 5 and GASTAR results agreed well; in both cases, temperature reductions decrease quickly with distance downstream. ADMS 5 gives more flexibility in generating and presenting results.

ADMS 5 was used to determine the meteorological conditions giving rise to the largest and smallest reduction in temperature due to the modelled jet. Stable conditions with low wind speeds gave the largest temperature reduction downstream of the release, and neutral conditions with high wind speeds gave the smallest temperature reduction; however, the difference in impact between these conditions was small.

For all meteorological conditions modelled, at receptors of various heights (trees, car park, offices and footpaths), the calculated temperature reduction was in the range 0-2 °C. Below a height of 5 m, the calculated temperature reduction was less than 1 °C.

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