Closing the Building Energy Performance Gap [GUIDE]

Green building certifications are essential in meeting global climate targets, but here’s the issue: certifications like BREEAM and LEED refer to theintendedenergy performance of a building, in the context of its design and construction stages.

But happens once that building is occupied? The building’s energy performance on paper starts to lookverydifferent from the daily reality of its actual use. In fact, according to aRIBA CIBSE database,buildings tend to consume between 1.5 and 2.5 times the amount of energy originally predicted by their designers.

That means even smart or green buildings on paper could be running inefficiently in practice – and costing you money. This discrepancy is called theenergy performance gap, andour free guideis all about closing it using the combined powers ofbuilding automation technologyandreal-time energy analytics.

What is the Building Energy Performance Gap?

The difference between promised energy savings in supposedly “smart” or “green” buildings and theactual energy performancerecorded by a building’ssubmetersorenergy management systemis commonly referred to as thebuildingenergy performance gap.

Some researchers blameinept energy modelling techniques无法捕获建筑实际上是如何工作的,but a number of factors could be responsible for this discrepancy. These might include assumptions made at the design stage but could also be due to faulty building components, or a failure to communicate about intended energy use to building users, or we might chalk it up to plain old energy drift.

Energy driftis the concept that buildings do not perform, from an energy consumption standpoint, as well over time as they did when they were first builtno matter what. The reasons for this vary changes made to set points and building controls, mechanical part wear, competent staff changeover, etc. The point is, that our buildings need a checkup every now and again to keep them running optimally – andthis is true for any building, regardless of its age or green building certification.

How Does the Energy Performance Gap Affect My Building Operation Costs?

Building retrofit expert and CEM Nathan Gillette estimate thatas much as 10-30% of maintenance costscan be incurred due to energy drift if a building performance is not analysed and optimised over time.

To mitigate some of these costs, building operators or facility managers tend to rely on their building automation system (BAS) to keep things under control – butautomation is not enough to reach optimised building energy performance.

Similarly, a building energy manager or sustainability team might initiate an energy efficiency project in an attempt to get their building back on track. Usually, these types of projects are a one-off to get some quick wins or low-hanging fruit,but the building never gets back to its original level of efficiency. Auto-depreciation resumes again until another “one-off” Energy Conservation Measure (ECM) is implemented, and the cycle begins again, each time “restarting” at a degraded efficiency level.

To create what’s called theongoing re-commissioning effect, it’s important tocombine building automation technology and energy analyticsrather than rely on one or the other in isolation.

Learn how you canoptimise your building performanceby complementing building automation and control systems with energy analytics in our latest free guide: