Barry McCarron is South West College Research and Development Coordinator for the award winning CREST (Centre for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies) at South West College in Enniskillen. He was invited to New Zealand to the Passive House Conference and Trade Show 2017 to talk about his research findings of the CREST project.
Barry has more than ten years’ experience with the construction Industry and specialises in Sustainable Construction and renewables Micro Generation, he is part of the team at South West College working towards developing the College into a Regional Centre of Excellence for Passive House. He is an MSc graduate of the Queens University, and also completed a HND in Building Engineering and Project Management. Barry recently has undertaken a PhD in Queen’s University to research the Passive House Standard and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive requires all new buildings to be nearly zero-energy by the end of 2020.
Passive House is the fastest growing energy performance standard in the world, with 30,000 buildings to date. The Passive House standard was developed in Germany in the early 1990s. The Passive House standard can be applied to residential dwellings and also to commercial, industrial and public buildings. The standards strengths lie in the simplicity of its approach; build a house that has an excellent thermal performance, exceptional airtightness with mechanical ventilation. This strong approach to building design allows the designer to minimise the 'Heating Demand' of the building and in some residential buildings only specify a heated towel rail as means of conventional heating, this heat can then be recovered and circulated by a Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MVHR) unit.
Jill Cush Head of Business Development “The College has carried out industrial R&D projects and training in low energy buildings for a number of years, driven by the development of the CREST Passive Pavilion in Enniskillen. We have identified a need to provide more advanced research support up to PhD level. Barry has over 10 years’ experience in industry in Sustainable Construction and Renewable Energy and has recently become a certified Passive House Design. He commenced a PhD in Passive House in 2016 and the conference in New Zealand afforded the opportunity for Barry to present his research finding on post-occupancy monitoring of a Passive demonstrator project at an international level.”