Subtasks

Subtask A: Users engagement (data needs)

Lead: UCL (Ian Hamilton)

This subtask will focus on stakeholder engagement for existing and prospective data users from government, academia, industry and the IEA itself.

The Subtask Aim is to:

• Identity user needs and how best to meet them
• Share experiences and promote best practice

Description: The users/stakeholders that will be focused on include national and state government officials (not politicians), city authorities and industry in energy supply, buildings construction and supply chain and (if appropriate) the investor community. The focus is to identify and map the key challenges in among users on the lack of knowledge of data (existence, use, linkage, benefits) and the confidence in data quality and their models. This Subtask will then feed into Subtask B, data framework and collection methods.

The focus of the Sub-task is on operational energy, delivered energy, and contextual data required to understand energy demand in buildings.

This activity will begin immediately within the operational phase with participants building a picture of these users’ needs. The initial Activity should inform the direction of and provide progress benchmarks for the other two subtasks.

Figure 2 – Subtask A Activities

The subtask will be divided into the following activities (Figure 2):

Activity A.1:

Identify energy and buildings stock data users (government, academia, industry, IEA) who are relevant to the collection, creation, access and use of energy and buildings stock data. Develop and pilot a survey instrument that is able to capture current uses/needs, strengths and weakness of current practice and use of energy and buildings data.

Activity Actions:

• Define the ‘users’ and stakeholders
• Interact with relevant disciplines to define the approach to information gathering
• Describe the value proposition of engagement with the Annex
• Develop and pilot survey instrument
• Administer survey to identified users and stakeholders

Activity A.2:

Create a conceptual framework for the survey results to evaluate and review stakeholders’ needs for energy and buildings stock data. Administer the surveys to identified groups using the framework to establish current uses/needs, strengths and weakness of current practice and use of energy and buildings data. Exploratory interviews with a selection of users for further description of their data uses and needs to inform the use cases.

Activity Actions:

• Review the existing surveys and network resources
• Describe the approach to surveys and interviews for each user group
• Determine framework elements from interviews/ surveys
• Outline structure of survey and test among participants
• Conduct surveys for identified groups
• (and) Undertake exploratory interviews with selected individuals
• Analyse and evaluate survey responses

Activity A.3:

Report on lessons learned from stakeholder engagement on the needs of energy and buildings stock data and recommendations for future engagement. Reporting will include best practice recommendations from users on data collection, reporting and access methods (to be fed into Activity B.2).  The reporting will also include Use Cases that can help meet user needs for: energy and buildings data for scenario planning in respect of building retrofit programmes, deployment of renewable energy and district energy systems, and changing social practices.

Activity Actions:

• Use survey evaluation analysis to create a Lessons Learned Report
• Use survey and exploratory interviews to create a Use Cases Report on best practice
• Undertake a quality check of analysis and reports.

Proposed outputs:

• Mapping of stakeholders and user groups;
• Survey Instrument on energy and building data users’ needs;
• Report on the development and use of the survey instrument;
• [D.A.1] Report on the key issues for different stakeholder groups across participating countries on their needs and uses of energy and buildings stock data;
• And a series of reports on:
  • Scenario planning and renewable energy deployment;
  • Smart meter roll-out;
• [D.A.2] Report on the survey instrument and conceptual frameworks for energy and building data collection and uses;
• [D.A.3] Report on use cases and best practices of energy and buildings data uses and accessibility case studies – demonstrating business case.

Subtask B: Data Access and Methods

Lead: Chalmers University (York Ostermeyer)

This subtask will identify and review the data and its development and foundations employed in the participating countries.  The subtask will build on the international survey undertaken in the annex development phase (see Appendix 1) and Subtask A. A framework will be developed to describe and classify energy and building stock data, including: attributes, types, variables, standards, etc…

The survey of data will also examine issues of: data procurement, management, storage and protection.  This will consider how funding and legislation impact on the procurement of, and access to, data.  The breadth, depth and quality of data available at the national, sub-national and field trial levels will be reviewed.

Figure 3 – Subtask B Activities

The subtask will be divided into the following research activities (Figure 3):

Activity B.1:

Develop a classification for energy and building stock data for use within the data survey and evaluation Activity (B2).  The classification will be informed by Activity A2 to capture the needs and uses of data users.

Activity Actions:

• Identify existing data classification systems and adopt to Annex requirements
• Develop a classification system for energy and buildings data
• Define a structure for data description
• Define a structure for data evaluation
• Define data evaluation metrics and indicators

Activity B.2:

Create a registry of energy and building stock data. Undertake a survey of building data and related energy data.  The survey will identify building stock and relevant occupant data, both national and sub-national surveys and field trials in the participating countries (and beyond where feasible). The sources of data provided in the IEA Energy Data Centre will be examined to better understand how these data are compiled in each country from the available datasets.  The data will be reviewed and evaluated using the structure defined in Activity B.1.  The findings will be recorded in the registry of datasets.

Activity Actions:

• Pilot classification
• Define criteria for data set identification (scope)
• Identify and describe the available datasets using the classification system (Registry)
• Identify the data collecting/storing methods

Activity B.3:

From the identified datasets, review methods for data collection, processing and reporting of national building stocks and energy use and field trials including: collection techniques, data sources, applicable standards, access and reporting mechanisms.  Investigate innovative methods for data aggregation that deal with single building data privacy and disaggregation which distinguishes different end-use and end-users in the energy use data.

Activity Actions:

• From identified datasets, describe and define the data collection methods;
• Define/map the relationship between the data providers/actors (i.e. Vertical integrated data collection/use structures, such as a municipal system)
• Identify key partners in the data management process
• Define the uses of different data types
• Outline the ‘Cardinal’ data points collection for energy and building stocks;
• Develop data case uses and data narratives (users) – feed into Activity A.3.
• Identify common/divergent measurement methods and opportunities for conversions

Activity B.4:

Linked to B3, review data reporting processes and access mechanisms of identified energy and building stock data.  Identify and report on best practices on data access, harmonisation, anonymization and approaches for addressing privacy associated with energy and building stocks data.

Activity Actions:

• Structuring the access and privacy mechanisms among the available datasets meta-data;
• Outline the perspectives and associated issue with different users and their data access vectors;
• Describe the ‘ideal vector of data collection, management, access and uses’ to define the best practice ‘gold standard’ / blue skies scenario

Activity B.5:

Produce a schema for energy and building stock data for developing and emerging economies.  Using the review of existing datasets and IEA data methods and best practices, create a data template for reporting energy and buildings stock data.

Proposed Outputs:

• Classification for energy and buildings stock data
• [D.B.1] Report on the classification for energy and buildings stock data;
• Registry of energy and building stock data
• [D.B.2] Report on identified energy and building stock data registry;
• [D.B.3] Reports on the data evaluation, including: a) method reports for different data outputs / resources; b) best practices for data collection; c) data uses; d) data schema for developing and emerging countries;
• Special issue on energy and buildings data in emerging economies.

Subtask C: Building stock modelling and analysis

Lead(s): Ghent University (Jelle Laverge, Marc Delghust)

This subtask will focus on the development and use of stock models (national and sub-national) and the way in which they draw on the datasets examined in Subtask B.  This subtask will also draw on the reviews of users’ needs undertaken in Subtask A and relate these to the modelling and analysis currently undertaken.  The annex focus is on the methods of energy and building stock modelling and analysis and their reliability.

Figure 4 – Subtask C Activities

The subtask will be divided in the following research activities (Figure 4).

Activity C.1:

(A) Review, develop a classification system to the models such as Kavgic et al[1], covering: e.g. methods and outputs, uncertainty etc…; (B) Apply classification to construct a register of available national/sub-national energy and building stock models.

Activity Actions:

• Define a classification system for stock models
• Identify (operating) stock models (Registry)
• Apply the classification system to the identified stock models

Activity C.2:

Undertake an international exercise to identify building stock model validity testing, uncertainty analyses, and stock level distribution outputs.  Define and apply a common activity to compare and contrast validity, uncertainty and outputs of the stock models undertaken by the group and describe the findings.  The activity will draw on and aim to address the user’s needs identified in Activity A2. The activity will comprise defining energy and buildings stock model validation processes by examining available existing models and validation techniques.  Best practice on data and tests will be defined.

Activity Actions:

• Identify and review model validation methods
• Identify and review model uncertainty analysis approaches
• Undertake model validation exercises using available stock models
• Propose Model output validity exercises

Activity C.3:

Draw together the results of the energy and building stock model validation, uncertainty and output exercises and report findings.  Develop recommendations for best practice in the development, use and reporting[3] of different types of building stock models which clearly identifies the strengths and weaknesses, uncertainty, fitness for purpose.

Activity Actions:

• Synthesize international energy and building stock model validation exercise
• Propose best practice recommendations for model validation methods
• Scope existing model reporting guidance
• Develop indicators and categories for model reporting guidance based on best practice of field and related relevant fields
• Define model reporting guidance

Activity C.4:

Develop a limited set of high level defined energy and building performance metrics for stock models to enable the comparison between countries, such as normalised energy annual use intensity values for distinct segments of the building stock.

Activity Actions:

• Generate list of indicators for energy and buildings stock performance comparison, including metrics and their definitions;
• Assess practical aspects of indicator comparison
• Select and test comparison of indicators across participating member countries

Proposed Outputs:

• Classification of building and energy stock models
• Registry of energy and buildings stock models
• [D.C.1] Report on the classification and registry of energy and buildings stock models
• [D.C.2] Report on energy and building stock model validation, uncertainty and stock model outputs
• Reporting guidelines for energy and building stock modelling studies
• Selected metrics for stock model comparison
• [D.C.3] Report on guidelines for energy and building stock model reporting and selected metrics for stock model comparison
• Data book for participating countries building energy use

[1] M. Kavgic,  A. Mavrogianni, D. Mumovic, A. Summerfield, Z. Stevanovic, M. Djurovic-Petrovic;  A review of bottom-up building stock models for energy consumption in the residential sector, Building and Environment, Volume 45, Issue 7, July 2010, Pages 1683–1697

 [3] C. Bennett and D. G. Manuel, “Reporting guidelines for modelling studies.,” BMC Med. Res. Methodol., vol. 12, no. 1, p. 168, Jan. 2012.