The Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED), an environmentally-friendly housing development in Wallington, a suburb of London. 

Bioregional reclaimed were very successful at reclaiming structural steelwork and softwood walling studs from local demolition sites for remanufacturing into useful new structural components. Most bulk materials and labour were sourced within a 50 mile radius of the site, enabling the completed embodied carbon to compare favourably with that of a volume housebuilder’s industry standard product - despite having thicker walls and considerably higher thermal mass.

BedZED is just about large enough to merit its own on-site water treatment plant and woodchip fuelled combined heat and power plant. Biomass CHP works very well on mixed use zero heating specification developments, as the thermal demand is for hot water only, and remains consistent all year, with oversize hot water storage tanks that can meet peak demands whilst still allowing trickle recharging throughout the day. This allows the power plant to more or less match average electrical demand, exporting to grid when surplus power is generated on site - and importing to meet peak demand. The advantage of the biomass CHP system is that very similar amounts of biomass are burnt compared to a conventional heat only boiler, as the electricity is generated from flue gases that would be unlikely to have been harnessed to the same efficiency in a more conventional combustion process. This make it much easier to stay within the national biomass quota, whilst still inhabiting higher density urban infrastructure.