Manchester Art Gallery

The Manchester pilot is located within  Manchester Art Gallery, which can be found at centre of the historic city and contributes to the city’s Manchester Climate Change Call to Action (p38) “Retrofitting Civic Heritage”.

Manchester City Galleries forms part of the Cultural Services Division at Manchester City Council. Manchester Art Gallery is one building in this portfolio and is one of the region’s most popular cultural destinations, attracting over 400,000 visits each year. It is owned and run by Manchester City Council. Between 1998 and 2002, it underwent a £35million refurbishment and expansion programme transformed the venue.

The complex comprises three buildings linked by a glazed atrium covering 3,200 square meters. The earliest was built in 1824 and is Grade l listed. The Athenaeum building, listed Grade II dates from 1836. The atrium unites the two historic buildings with the new extension, making a single building under one roof and provides disabled access.

The main entrance is through the Ionic portico of the old gallery.  The grand staircase leads to a number of galleries. A footbridge crosses over the glazed link to the new extension, with a staircase and free standing lift towers.  A continuous sequence of galleries on the first floor in the new building gives access to the Athenaeum. A shop, coffee bar and restaurant, the education department, a further gallery and the loading dock occupy the ground floor.

Under the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, large buildings that are occupied for either ‘public authorities’ or ‘institutions providing public services’ are required to publicly display energy performance certificates.  On the scale of A (best) to G (worst) the art gallery is rated as G.

The aims of the Manchester pilot are:

•    Demonstrate that is possible to deliver energy improvements to the most challenging buildings in an economically viable way.

•    Provide a blueprint for similar improvements in many of the other 300 Council buildings across Manchester.

•    Look at how carbon reductions can be made through an increased understanding of energy use and associated behaviour change.

The core technology employed to store and collect and store data is the Elmo monitoring system manufactured by Hanwell Instruments Limited. Hanwell is a UK company. They have over 15 years of expertise in the design and production of wireless monitoring and control systems. The company offers a range of monitoring equipment utilising radio communications. This requires no additional wiring to be installed on site.

Most of the sensors are current transformer (CT) clips on the power cables with a small number of the pulse counters on gas / water meters. Through the use of use of multiple sensing points across the site, a “map” of how power is being used can be viewed.

Watch Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council speaking about the Manchester pilot.  Save Energy 2011 Video - Manchester.

Download an article about the Manchester pilot.

Read about the Manchester pilot in Manchester Art Gallery Article : Greenbuild June 2011.