SECTOR | Energy, Water & Waste
STAGE | Planning, Financing, Design, Procurement, Construction, and Operations and Maintenance
TECHNOLOGIES | Cloud Computing, Data Analytics, New Materials/Treatments, Renewable Energy Technologies
SUMMARY
This case study was jointly submitted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and construction company CCC
Renewable energy is being used in multiple forms these days. Construction companies, especially those involved in large projects, also have an impact on the environment. Considering the ease in availability of photovoltaic technology to build environment friendly cabins at remote construction areas and sites that will replace the need to have electricity generators, we decided to start this R & D to build our own “CCC 100 % off-grid portable cabin” to operate appliances that are required for office and accommodation use with 24 hours a day availability and dependability.
A 100% off-grid standalone portable cabin that uses photovoltaic modules to charge Lithium-Ion battery storage in order to operate appliances required for office and camp use. It does not require any electricity generated by burning fuel. The sizes of the portable cabins are 22 and 27 square meters. The appliances operate for 24 hours while maintaining a room temperature of 25 °C in an ambient temperature of 45 °C to 48 °C.
Top drivers for this project:
- Environmental, portability, agility in mobilization and demobilization operations, reducing or eliminating running cost.
Desired outcome:
- Reduce portable cabin diesel consumption that is being used for office and accommodation by 100 %. Increasing sustainability by recycling and using new material to build the portable cabin which is 60 % of the steel being used is from Scrap steel, 80 % of the wood being used is from existing cabin wood, painting the cabin with low volatile organic compound paint. 100% in- house insulation being prepared by mixing old newspaper mixed with boric acid as a fire redundant and pest control.
Top barriers:
- Lithium ion battery storage maturity and availability with battery management system (BMS), Active power unit (APU), Active Battery Optimizer (ABO) technologies. proof of concept electrical and technical design, logistics and customs challenges of importing new technologies into the country.
- Surveying the global market focusing on Start-ups with specific technical specification, in depth technical design based on required specification, commissioning and testing phase of CCC 100 % Off-grid portable cabin while monitoring and analyzing the data generated for a period of 1 year.
VALUE CREATED
Each 100 % off-grid portable cabin reduced CO2 emissions calculated and estimated to 569.4 tCO2 for the period of 10 years compared with the portable cabins that is powered by diesel generators, recycling and refurbishing the material to build a new unit, savings in diesel consumption cost which was estimated based on historical data to $80k for the period of 10 years for each unit those. The cost calculated is variable based on the price of diesel per litre.
Environmental benefits: 60 % Recycled scrap steel, 80% Recycled wood, 90 % used is environment friendly paint water based instead of chemical based, recycling newspaper to be used as isolation. 100% reduction diesel to operate appliances required for office and accommodation.
Scalability
The CCC 100 % Off-grid portable cabin is a standalone unit therefor the unit can be scalable by adding additional units.
RISKS AND MITIGATIONS
Implementation risk
As all other proof of concept/pilot projects. Uncertainty of the final product was taken into consideration in the design phase due to unavailability of case studies that adapts such technology in construction industry. Post completion of the project, the cabin was tested and considered as a reliable and robust solution which will be implemented in our future projects.
Safety and (Cyber)security risk
It reflected positively on the environment eliminating CO2 emissions produced by burning biofuel recycling material. Disposal of batteries are taken into consideration in design phase. There is an impact on lithium-ion mining and extraction.
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