Environmental Design

Outside_of_TUCA_building_17643.jpgEnvironmental issues have been central to the development of Crossrail from the early stages of the project and from the outset, measures to avoid, reduce or mitigate environmental impacts were incorporated into the design.

Crossrail has adopted two established sustainability assessment methodologies in order to evaluate performance. These take a whole life view of the Crossrail programme with criteria that cover both construction and operational activities.

CEEQUAL

All tunnels, portals (transition structures between surface and tunnel) & shafts (vertical structures linking the tunnel to the surface) are being assessed using the Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) methodology and have achieved ‘Excellent’ ratings at Client & Interim Design stage. Crossrail’s aim is to achieve the ‘Excellent’ rating when the project is assessed as a whole upon completion. One of the key challenges found was the alignment of design packages with the procurement and construction strategy. The CEEQUAL learning legacy paper focuses on the key issues and provides suggestions on how the process can be simplified.  It also addresses the issue of the value of CEEQUAL in driving best practice and overall  improvement on a high profile major infrastructure project that is required to deliver high levels of performance through its minimum environmental requirements and rigorous consenting process.

BREEAM

The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) has been adopted for all central section stations. This assessment methodology has never been used on an underground station previously and required Crossrail to work with the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and consultants to develop specific criteria. This will help to provide an assessment tool that can be used for future underground station projects. Crossrail’s aim is to achieve a rating of ‘Very Good’. The BREEAM learning legacy paper captures some of the experience of delivering BREEAM on Crossrail and highlight some of the issues that would be pertinent to other underground stations.

Tunnel Energy Segments

Significant heat is generated by underground trains, particularly when braking, stopping at platforms and accelerating away from stations. Tunnel Energy Segments (TES) are ordinary pre-cast tunnel lining segments modified by embedding water containing absorber pipes inside the concrete. This unconventional approach is designed to extract the waste heat rejected from train operations and upgrade it into usable heat energy for buildings above-ground using heat pumps.

paper published in the ICE Sustainability journal reports on the work carried out in designing thermal energy segments for use on the tunnelled sections of the Crossrail project. This was not taken forward within the project but is shared as part of the Learning Legacy for future projects.

Repurposing of Grout Shafts

Compensation grouting is undertaken where there is a risk of ground settlement in the vicinity of underground excavations and tunnelling. This is particularly a risk in areas of SCL tunnelling. These mitigation works are constructed at huge cost, only to be reinstated at the cessation of construction. The shafts and their expansive grouting pipe (TaM) networks provide the basic infrastructure for ground source heat collection as they have a significant contact area with the ground several metres below ground level and can consist of several kilometres of pipe. Trials undertaken at Whitechapel have demonstrated that viable heat can be extracted from these networks. This has huge implications for the longer term viability of these structures by considering them as heat networks which have a temporary use for construction. Benefits to local community heating/cooling can accrue with potential cooling benefits to underground infrastructure. There may also be potential planning gain benefits. A grout shaft micro report discusses the benefits and technical considerations.

Environmental Design Documents

Summary Publication date Document Type
BREEAM for Underground Stations

BREEAM for Underground Stations

Topic area: Environmental Design

The use of BREEAM for underground stations was pioneered on Crossrail. This required the adaptation of theuse of BREEAM Bespoke 2008 methodology to enable BREEAM assessments to be carried out on the Crossrail project works relating to underground train stations (new works and major refurbishments). Crossrail worked tog...

27/07/2018 Micro-report
CEEQUAL – Case Studies

CEEQUAL – Case Studies

Topic area: Environmental Design

On the central section all tunnels, portals (transition structures between surface and tunnel) & shafts (vertical structures linking the tunnel to the surface) have been assessed using the Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) methodology. Crossrail’s aim was to achieve an Excellent rating when the wh...

30/01/2018 Good Practice Document
Repurposing of Grout Shafts

Repurposing of Grout Shafts

Topic area: Environmental Design

Crossrail investigated potential long term uses for the temporary grout shafts excavated to enable mitigation of ground settlement. This micro-report and supporting documents explain the options that were researched, why they could not be implemented by Crossrail and recommends that future projects consider such repurp...

31/10/2016 Micro-report
The use of CEEQUAL in complex projects

The use of CEEQUAL in complex projects

Topic area: Environmental Design

CEEQUAL has been used as a tool to benchmark overall environmental performance for Crossrail’s tunnels, portals and shafts. One of the key challenges was the alignment of design packages with the procurement and construction strategy. This paper focuses on the key issues and provides suggestions on how the process ca...

27/09/2016 Micro-report
Front cover of ICE Proceedings journal Engineering Sustainability

Tunnel Energy Segments

Topic area: Environmental Design

Significant heat is generated by underground trains, particularly when braking, stopping at platforms and accelerating away from stations. A complex ventilation system including shaft, fans and under-platform extraction  has to be designed to manage the rising temperature in tunnels and stations. This conventional app...

30/06/2014 Journal Publication
Environment Webinar -The Use of Sustainability Assessments on Crossrail: CEEQUAL and BREEAM

Environment Webinar -The Use of Sustainability Assessments on Crossrail: CEEQUAL and BREEAM

Topic area: Environment Webinars

This is the third in a series of Crossrail Learning Legacy webinars focused on the Environment Theme, hosted by our partners at CIRIA and IEMA. It describes how CEEQUAL and BREEAM were used to benchmark the environmental performance of the project. Both BREEAM and CEEQUAL have been and are being extensively used on the...

24/11/2016 Video
The Design of Thermal Tunnel Energy Segments for Crossrail

The Design of Thermal Tunnel Energy Segments for Crossrail

Topic area: Civil Engineering

In recent years the drive to reduce carbon emissions and reliance on oil and gas has led to the increase in the use of renewable energy heating systems. The ground source heat pump systems are an example of these renewable systems. Recently tunnels have been considered as a way of connecting building heat pump systems ...

03/11/2014 Technical Paper