Against a world backdrop of increased concerns about energy security, price fluctuations and, the need to address climate change, six new research projects that aim to gain a fuller understanding of how energy is managed in the country’s non-domestic buildings have recently been launched.
Funded with £3 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), on behalf of the Research Councils UK Energy Programme (RCUKEP), the research will ‘address how to use technology, data and information, mathematics, law, and sociology, to create better energy strategies and behaviours in the public and private non-domestic building stock’.
According to the EPSRC, non-domestic buildings account for around 18 per cent of UK carbon emissions, and 13 per cent of final energy consumption. The Council added: “By 2050, the total UK’s non-domestic floor area is expected to increase by 35 per cent, while 60 per cent of existing buildings will still be in use. This means substantial retrofitting is likely, and planning what techniques to use to save energy, as well as how to implement change with the cooperation of building occupants, will be essential.”
Professor Philip Nelson, EPSRC’s chief executive, said: “Improving energy efficiency is an important piece of the energy puzzle. These projects will go a long way to helping improve our understanding of what goes on in non-domestic buildings, and add to the armoury at the disposal of those managing these facilities.”
The new projects will be run at Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, University of Southampton, and University of Strathclyde.
The projects are:
- ‘Future-proofing facilities management (Future FM )’ – examining ‘how big data can help facilities managers deliver future-proofed energy efficiency improvements’. – Imperial College London.
- ‘B-bem: The Bayesian building energy management portal’ – ‘to develop and recommend a new approach to performing uncertainty analysis, as well as the display and interpretation of uncertainty in energy management of non-domestic buildings’. –
University of Cambridge.
- ‘Data-Driven Sociotechnical Energy Management in Public Sector Buildings’ – this project will ‘aim to construct a feedback loop to give information to building managers and occupants on their energy consumption, the activities using energy, and how much for each one, with suggestions on how to reduce energy expenditure and use’. – University of Edinburgh.
- ‘Working with Information, Creation of Knowledge, and Energy Strategy Deployment (WICKED) in Non-Domestic Buildings’ – to ‘provide insight into the inter-relationship between the technical, legal, and organisational challenges involved in improving energy performance in the retail sector, for both small and large organisations’ – University of Oxford.
- ‘Pervasive sensing for collaborative facilities management’ – exploring the use of sensors to capture data on environmental conditions, occupant behaviour, and personalised energy use, and mapping this information ‘to support negotiations between occupants and facilities managers’. – University of Strathclyde.
- Aperio: ‘Low cost façade management in naturally ventilated buildings’. This project will examine how external digital cameras can be used to monitor how windows, blinds, and lighting are used, and how occupants’ needs, such as privacy, comfort, and security, ‘can be balanced with energy management’. – University of Southampton.
For further information on each project, and contact details for the principal investigators, visit: http://tinyurl.com/nbo3mnw
