Energy World was a demonstration project of 51

low-energy house A low-energy house is characterized by an energy-efficient design and technical features which enable it to provide high living standards and comfort with low energy consumption and carbon emissions. Traditional heating and active cooling systems ...

s constructed in the

Shenley Lodge Shenley Brook End is a village, district and wider civil parishes in England, civil parish in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire#Ceremonial County, Buckinghamshire, England. Together with its neighbouring districts of Shenley Church End, Shenley Woo ...

area of

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. The project was promoted by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation and culminated in a public exhibition in August and October 1986 that attracted international interest. It was a significant landmark in the design and construction of low-energy housing, and in the development of energy efficiency evaluation tools. It has had a long-term impact on Government policy and within the national house-building industry, insofar as the progressive 'tightening up' of the energy section of the Building Regulations has largely been founded on this pioneering work. The houses were designed to be at least 30% more efficient than the Building Regulations then in force. The

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and technologies used was very varied, and included designs from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

(the first R-2000 house in the UK),

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. Although it was later removed, the exhibition also featured a

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

, then an uncommon sight. As of 2004 the houses were continuing to sell for 3% above the price of other housing in the are

Energy World was one of several low-energy projects built in the Milton Keynes area. These included trials on a number of individual houses and the construction of 177 houses in the 1970s Pennyland project. Following the success of Energy World, 1,200 dwellings were built to the same (or better) energy standard in the rest of

(known as 'the Energy Park

and the same standard was subsequently applied Citywide. The concept of the Energy Park was extended into non-residential buildings built across

Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main ...

in Knowlhill where a number of low energy office buildings have been constructed including the two phases of the headquarters buildings of the

National Energy Foundation The National Energy Foundation (NEF) is an independent British charity, established to improve the use of energy in buildings. Aims The charity aims to ''improve the use of energy in buildings''. This statement simplified the earlier stated ...

Home energy efficiency rating schemes

Another area where Energy World continues to have an impact derives from the Milton Keynes Energy Cost Index (MKECI

which was used to calculate the energy efficiency of the Energy World houses. Based on the results and feedback from Energy World, this was to evolve into the UK's first national energy efficiency rating scheme for buildings, with the launch in 1990 of the

National Home Energy Rating The National Home Energy Rating Scheme (NHER) is both a UK accreditation scheme for energy assessors and a rating scale for the energy efficiency of housing. The NHER was owned and operated by National Energy Services (NES). Until 2011, NES was ...

scheme (NHER

This, in turn, gave rise to the introduction in 1995 of the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rating system used in the national Building Regulations and in home Energy Performance Certificates (originally introduced in 2007 as part of the Home Information Pack).

External links

The Energy World exhibitionThe development of environmental building standards in Milton KeynesMilton Keynes Energy Park Revisited: changes in internal temperatures
{{Coord, 52, 01, 06, N, 0, 46, 18, W, dim:100_region:GB, display=title Low-energy building in the United Kingdom History of Milton Keynes Houses completed in 1986

Home energy efficiency rating schemes

See also

External links