Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ExcEED (ExcEED – European Energy Efficient buildingdistrict Database: from data to information to knowledge)

Teaser

In Europe, buildings are the most responsible for energy consumption, contributing to a 40% of the total final energy consumption and 36% of the CO2 emissions and, therefore, there is an unavoidable need to learn from what we are doing, or have recently done, to improve the...

Summary

In Europe, buildings are the most responsible for energy consumption, contributing to a 40% of the total final energy consumption and 36% of the CO2 emissions and, therefore, there is an unavoidable need to learn from what we are doing, or have recently done, to improve the quality and performance of the future building sector. The scope of H2020 ExcEED project is to create a high-quality, reliable, widely used and well-structured European platform to store and process measured quantitative and qualitative data on beyond the state-of-the-art buildings. Thanks to the platform, users, such as ESCOs, energy managers, designers and building owners, can benchmark their buildings’ energy use against other buildings with similar characteristics and save energy and related costs by improving their performance up to the feasible potential threshold. T

To reach the abovementioned goals, ExcEED platform was designed to include the following key elements:
• A European database to collect meaningful data from buildings;
• A front-end dashboard with integrated analytical tools designed to turn complex energy data into clear actionable insights on different aspects characterizing energy performance and sustainability in the building sector;
• A collection of 27 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• A set of tools that allows geo-clustered, statistical analysis of building data;
• A benchmarking function able to analyse building interaction;
• An Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) survey to evaluate the indoor comfort perceived by occupants.
ExcEED platform can be considered as the first implementation of a comprehensive platform of building meta-data and performance data for state-of-the-art buildings in Europe, offering its users the following different functionalities:
- visualisation of the energy and comfort data of a building or of multiple buildings;
- highlighting energy performance trends with several levels of resolutions;
- evaluation of building performance using specifically defined 27 KPIs, conceived and developed to highlight different behaviour and normalise the effect of the context;
- comprehensive benchmarking by using the developed KPIs and combining in different way the uploaded data-set;
- clustering of buildings according to the selected KPI;
- analysis of building occupants’ perception of the indoor environment through a dedicated IEQ survey.
The platform will remain open and free even after the end of the project at the link: http://www.exceedproject.eu/register-to-the-platform/

Work performed

In the second and final phase of the project implementation (March 2018- September 2019), all activities focused on establishing durable return of knowledge mechanisms capable of taking the data from the last generation of buildings and converting them into knowledge for energy managers, ESCOs, designers and policy makers.

The pivotal elements of the return-of-knowledge mechanism are the ExcEED platform and the associated tools. The final version of the platform has been developed together with an online dashboard capable of collecting data from buildings and analyse it through dedicated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

To define which meta-data need to be uploaded from the users into the platform, the project partners identified the most useful KPIs (27) to evaluate the last generation of buildings, from energy efficiency to indoor environmental quality.

ExcEED partners have also developed a geo-cluster tool able to easily select, cluster and display geo-clustered information highlighting common spatial patterns and regions per groups of KPIs. These data can effectively support policy makers and legislative bodies to compare technical/legislative frameworks in similar contexts and to identify ad-hoc solutions for regions with similar conditions.

Looking at the perceived indoor environmental quality, a Post Occupancy Evaluation survey was created and embedded in the platform, in order to store together measured data and user’s perception of the indoor environment. This tool can improve our understanding of the users’ perception on the indoor environment, and encourage the design of healthy, comfortable, and energy efficient buildings.

The effectiveness of the platform and the tools has been tested by Casa Hoval, ExcEED demo case and nZEB office building in the northern of Italy. New sensors and energy meters were installed, in addition to the original energy monitoring system, and data needed for the KPIs calculation were transferred from the demo case into the platform.

To guarantee a lasting effect of return of knowledge from existing building to future building, partners have elaborated short and mid-term business plans to guarantee the self-sustainability of the platform.

Regarding communication and dissemination, the activities aimed to exploit and valorise the project´s tools and results among the identified target groups, at the same time raising awareness on the project itself.
Through social media, dedicated newsletters, advertising brochure, infographics, short stories, policy factsheets, promotion at international events, ExcEED activities and results have been promoted to reach a wider public audience. Besides, the main outcomes are the ExcEED handbook, explaining the potential of the ExcEED tools from a business and a policy perspective, and the ExcEED Guidelines, providing information about the project findings and technical solutions.They are available online at : http://www.exceedproject.eu/news/

Partners also made some assumptions on the potential anomalies based on KPI threshold values and possible data inconsistencies. The approach followed was to assess expected value range for KPIs, considering the building intended use and climate zone. The assessment resulted in some attention points for the ExcEED platform designer to focus on for optimizing the user experience.

Final results

Currently, the state-of-the-art-building energy design guidance is based on simulations, with only little feedbacks available to designers and policy makers in terms of the actual energy performance of these buildings, once operational. An overview of the energy performance of a geo-cluster of buildings energy-rated with a variety of systems can reveal which innovative solutions have led to an operational building performance more in line with expectations.

Collecting exploitable design and operational data for a representative stock of new and renovated buildings across Europe can allow a range of stakeholders to gain valuable insights into assumed and actualized building energy performance. It also allows to identify those practices that need to change, leading not only to improved policy and design practices, but also to improved energy efficiency practices in situ and to an overall net environmental benefit, in line with the SETplan goals.

Thanks to the ExcEED project, a European platform to store and process measured quantitative and qualitative data on beyond the state-of-the-art building has been created. This unique platform allows users, such as ESCOs, energy managers, designers, to both analyse and benchmark their buildings’ energy use against other buildings with similar characteristics and to save energy and related costs by improving their performance up to the feasible potential threshold. Therefore, the project supports actions aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of buildings but also at ensuring healthy and comfortable indoor environments.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.exceedproject.eu/.