Untangling Energy Use withVoluntary Display Energy Certificates

Malcolm Hanna, Technical Director, National Energy Foundation

EMEX – 19th November 2014

Improving the use of energy in buildings

Contents

• Display Energy Certificates

• How people use DECs

• The issue for Landlords and tenants

• The VolDEC solution

• Future development

It’s fairly tangledIt’s fairly tangled

Display Energy Certificates

How people use DECs

• Promotional device, clear indicator

• Enhanced when combined with promotional campaign

• Engagement and culture change

• Competitions between buildings

• Live dashboards

• Simple message easily included in reports and documents

• Clear indication of use and trends

The issues for Landlords and Tenants

The issue for Landlords and Tenants

• No split between Landlord and Tenant

• DEC shows whole building performance, one DEC.

• Cannot show improvements (or not) in what each control

• DECs use one benchmark for all offices, not a good match for many office types

• Many offices are ‘stuck’ at G, cannot show improvement

The issue for Landlords and Tenants

• Considerable enhancement could occur through:

• Review letter rating, finer grain approach

• Ensure benchmarks are understood and appropriate

• Letter rating potentially de-motivating, too coarse

• G rating has a very long tail, poor buildings hard to show improvement

The VolDEC Solution

The VolDEC solution

Building Energy Solutions

Energy Management, Research & Training Consultancy

• Voluntary scheme without government constraints

• Not for profit, for benefit of the industry, backed by the

indusry

• To use authoritative sector specific benchmarks

• To highlight performance and encourage action and

improvement

• To conduct benchmarking research for the industry

• Soft start the commercial sector into measuring

performance

• Encourage deeper analysis to benefit building

operators, designers and the whole industry

The VolDEC solution - Aims

The VolDEC solution - the offering

• Easy access, quick, low cost

• No lodgement, no site visit, no advisory report

• Use the existing DEC methodology as the basis

• Use a ‘similar’ (improved) DEC certificate layout with A-G scale including G1-G4 and U = Unclassified

• Include a certificate quality rating: HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW to encourage better data quality

• Immediate feedback to encourage data quality improvement

• Better (& improving) benchmarks and categories, working with sectors

The VolDEC Method

Statutory DEC VolDEC

Methodology

Produced using the methodology described in CIBSE TM47

Produced using the methodology described in CIBSE TM47

Benchmarks Uses CIBSE TM46 benchmarks. This provides only one benchmark for all office types.

Uses ECON19 benchmarks for offices. This provides four different office types plus energy is broken down by end use for each type.

Landlord / tenant split

Unable to provide a separate landlord tenant DEC in the same building

Uses the granular energy breakdown in ECON19 to provide composite landlord and tenant benchmarks for 5 different building scenarios.

The VolDEC Method

What do you need for a VolDEC?

• Building postcode

• Floor area

• Approximate hours of occupancy

• Annual energy use – landlord & Tenant

• Data year

• Main heating fuel type

What do you need for a VolDEC• Choose office type – closest match

What do you need for a VolDEC

• Choose building Scenario – closest match

The benefits of VolDEC

• Provides landlords and tenants with comparative energy performance of the areas they control

• Stand-alone entry level engagement tool – simple, easy to produce and inexpensive

• Uses robust DEC method but with more appropriate benchmarks

• Highlights energy performance and provides a clear driver for improving performance

• The VolDEC process highlights anomalies and the need for more sophisticated benchmarking

Future Development

Future developments

• Water and waste (Environmental VolDEC)

• Floor by floor (individual tenant VolDEC)

• Shopping centres (new sector)

• Future on-line self-input

• Benchmarking reports / organisational reports

National Energy Foundation

• Primary objective is improving the use of energy in buildings.

• Providing affordable, accessible tools to help organisations understand and manage their energy use is a key objective.

• We think VolDEC can help to deliver this.

www.nef.org.uk

Malcolm.hanna@nef.org.uk

Improving the use of energy in buildings