Data can solve the puzzle of energy efficiency

While putting those lofty ambitions into practice won’t be easy, data is the key to unlocking potential solutions.

A lack of data – or lack of awareness of how to use such data effectively – is a key issue that the property industry is still grappling with. At the annual PropSki conference in France last month, boutique technology firm Skieward Consulting, digital energy efficiency specialist eEnergy and Property Week brought together a panel of experts to discuss where the difficulties and opportunities lie when it comes to cutting the property industry’s energy consumption and cost.

At Cime Caron, a venue on the 3,200m mountain of the same name, overlooking ski area Les 3 Vallées, our panel of professionals in planning, artificial intelligence (AI), land and asset management delved into the major issues the industry faces when it comes to solving the data and energy riddle for UK real estate.

This is where, as an industry, we need to start guiding property owners into asking what the data is telling them
Stuart Searle, Consult Sustain

“The carbon emissions from the whole building stock of the UK are somewhere between 30% and 40% of all the energy we use,” said Christopher Potter, commercial manager at Skieward. “Saving a few percent just by knowing where data [on building performance] will have an impact can drive incremental change in overall emissions. The problem is that no one knows where the data is.”

Harvey Sinclair, chief executive of eEnergy, added: “Around 30% of energy in UK buildings is wasted through avoidable inefficiencies and poor control. That’s the opportunity: find the waste fast, fund the fixes and prove the savings.”

Emily Wingrove, head of sustainability, Midlands, at engineering consultancy Waterman Group, said: “We have clients with large portfolios who, where they’re buying new student accommodation, are particularly interested in running costs, because the students are not paying it. However, the data is not linked up [on energy costs].”

Wingrove said that in many cases, it can be a battle to convince clients and other parties that inputting data correctly is the first stage in achieving cost efficiency and savings.

“You look at the asset and how it performs operationally, and that really needs to link back to the finances [of a company] and your business decisions,” she added.

Wingrove was not the only panel member to suggest that perceptions in the industry are still stuck in the past when it comes to data management.

“It is a mindset [that needs to change],” Potter said. “It’s just a cost centre [for many businesses] and that is not how we should look at buildings and make decisions about them.”

AI as a solution

AI has been cited as a problem-solver when it comes to handling and processing the reams of raw data on energy use that many firms have collected.

“People come to us and say: ‘We want to do AI’, but they have no clue what that means,” Potter said. “But it is a topic at every board meeting. The most impactful use cases [for AI] are often the simplest ones. We have a client with huge call centre volumes dealing with tenants in over 300,000 units and most of their questions can be answered via an FAQ such as ‘how do I restart my boiler?’”

Collecting performance data can also be labour intensive. The introduction of smart meters in homes is helping to monitor energy without manual readings, but there are opportunities for further automation.

When the data is collected, many asset owners aren’t aware of what they can do with it. “This is where, as an industry, we need to start guiding property owners into asking what the data is telling them,” said Stuart Searle, founder and managing director of building services consultancy Consult Sustain.

According to Searle, when it comes to energy use in particular, there is a gap between proposed performance when a building is developed and the reality once it is built and occupied.

He cited the first Passivhaus home built in the UK in 2007, the data from which has been captured for almost 20 years and fed into a long-term strategy that helps build a holistic picture of energy use – at least for that home. But that, of course, is just one individual case.

“Building owners need to ask: ‘What’s the data we are capturing? If it is going wrong, then why?’ And then we can start feeding that back into the industry,” added Searle.

He called for wider collaboration when it comes to building performance, an approach backed by other panel members.

“Data post-construction or post-planning is quite limited,” pointed out Julian Davies, founder and chief executive of property and construction consultancy Earl Kendrick. Davies highlighted the Strata building in London as an example of a well-intentioned scheme that didn’t work in practice, but is one the industry could learn from.

“Data for a building after completion and up-and-running is not measured or monitored [appropriately.] From an operational lifetime costing, it [the Strata] doesn’t work,” he said.

Funding is the starting point. It turns decarbonisation from a competing capital decision into a delivered programme
Harvey Sinclair, eEnergy

Tackling such perceptions can be an uphill task, not only in building performance, but across the built environment. The panel agreed that if the UK is to hit its net zero targets, then if and when buildings are not performing to requirements, questions need to be asked about what is going wrong. Accurate data is vital in such circumstances.

Harry Quartermain, head of research and insights at specialist data firm LandTech, said: “The old saying is ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’; there is a lot of inconsistency in the system. You have just under 300 local councils in the country, all of whom have different naming conventions for policy, data and different stages of planning applications, and getting a clear, consistent picture of how the system is running is quite difficult.”

When it comes to improving buildings’ sustainability and energy use, the City of London has led the way in terms of asking developers to include materials passports in their schemes, allowing for the reuse of certain building elements and championing retrofitting.

But experience suggests making such policies more ubiquitous in the planning system is a tough task.

One system doesn’t fit all scenarios

Sara Dutfield, director, head of planning East and South East at development consultancy Turley, explained that one type of energy rating system doesn’t necessarily fit all scenarios.

“BREEAM is great in one sense, but it isn’t always the right solution for a local authority or an area where you can always meet all the criteria. It’s a very generic solution for something that is not more complex, but needs a more bespoke approach.”

Another area where data adds real value is turning decarbonisation into a fundable, prioritised plan, so organisations can see the return before they commit. Sinclair said funding removes the capital hurdle and lets businesses start with the highest-impact measures first.

“Funding is the starting point. It turns decarbonisation from a competing capital decision into a delivered programme. With a funded route, organisations can prioritise the biggest wins, track performance through data and scale confidently across the estate,” he explained.

A practical example he gave is using a connected survey-and-modelling platform to capture lighting inputs at asset level on site. These can be translated into a quantified baseline and prioritised upgrade plan. That same dataset can then be used to model how solar and electric vehicle charging fit within a broader decarbonisation roadmap, including funding options and post-installation measurements.

Data on buildings’ performance and energy efficiency has to a certain extent been closely guarded. Edward Wallace, chief executive and co-founder of Skieward, said the wider real estate sector, and notably private rental sector, could learn from housing associations how data on buildings’ performance – particularly when it comes to energy – can be shared.

“Housing associations are fantastic at learning from each other,“ Wallace noted. “They’re not competitive, so whatever we build using [customer relationship management platform] Salesforce within a use-case, they want to show it off and talk about the use of AI.

It is a positive and slightly less competitive environment to be in.”

Potential for heat networks

The recent Warm Homes Plan (WHP) highlights how the government is looking at new ways to fund the decarbonisation of the UK’s energy grid. Heat networks are one approach the WHP wants to see used on a wider scale.

“We see a lot of commercial heat networks where there are planning requirements and you have to hit a certain intensity of carbon,” said Kit Gillibrand, co-chief executive and founder of HermeticaBlack, a specialist in infrastructure and energy assets.

“We say to our clients: ‘Why don’t you own this network within the development? And then when it’s all built out and you get to an end point, if you want to sell it, you’ll get better value for it.’ It protects it [the network] from value engineering.”

The panel concluded that understanding how investing in sustainable energy solutions can deliver a return over the long term may be the key to unlocking a reduction in carbon emissions from the UK’s businesses and homes. And collecting data more effectively
is a key first step in achieving that aim.