INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES NOVEMBER 2014 Summary report By Sophie Chisholm, Programme and Technical Manager CBx
INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES
Overview This paper was put together following the CBx evening event in November 2014, to summarise the open discussion around the knowledge and experiences from Innovate UK’s £8m commitment to fund the costs of building performance evaluation studies on domestic and non-domestic buildings. With special thanks to our fantastic panel of experts; Matt Colmer of Innovate UK, Munish Datta of Marks and Spencer, Esfandiar Burman of University College London, Rob Lambe of Willmott Dixon, and Kerry Mashford of the National Energy Foundation.
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES
INNOVATE UK BPE
future supply chains. Over the next 6 to 9 months,
PROGRAMME
available for the wider industry.
The
Building
Performance
learning outcomes will be collated and made
Evaluation
(BPE)
programme is one of the longest programmes that Innovate UK has run and has seen £8million put towards investigations of individual buildings in both the domestic and the non-domestic sectors. Funding
was
awarded
for
the
performance
evaluation of buildings at handover / early occupation and buildings in use no more than two years old at the time of joining the programme. While most of the case studies were new builds, the set included some refurbishments. Awarded over 7 tranches, the final portfolio consists of 53 domestic projects and 48 non-domestic projects, all of which are now coming to an end. A programme of dissemination will begin in early 2015.
The BPE programme builds on two major previous programmes; Post Occupancy Review of Building Engineering (PROBE) in the mid-1990’s and the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) 5 years later which looked more specifically at buildings with low carbon technologies. The studies sent experts to evaluate case studies and record their findings; both historical studies returned very similar high level results: •
Energy consumption much higher than estimated
•
Buildings are often feature-packed but not functional
•
Complex and unmanageable controls
•
Buildings not finished when handed over
The LCBP also found that low and zero carbon (LZC)
“The BPE programme, fosters skills in the immediate project team and further into the wider supply chain.”
technologies were risky, fragile and not fully understood. All of these learning outcomes are, again, repeated across the BPE programme. Very early analysis performed by Verco comparing the Building
Objectives set at the beginning of the programme in 2010 aimed to better understand how to deliver high performing buildings and to embed building performance evaluation into professional practice.
Emissions Rating (BER) against TM22 figures for 29 of the studies indicates that regulations are only covering between 1/3 and 1/9 of the total operational energy consumption.
This would enable the industry and the clients to
The
learn, to implement the findings and to improve
predecessors, looking at high complexity buildings
their own performance. The final objective was to
in fine detail, fostering the skills to do so in the
assemble a suite of ‘fit for purpose’ BPE tools.
immediate project team and further into the wider
Research outcomes are of immediate use to the
supply chains. Teams were tasked with; identifying
projects teams involved including their present and
design
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BPE
programme
challenges,
has
gone
exposing
beyond
the
its
factors
October 2014
INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES contributing to poor performance and pulling out
and the construction method would be a useful
the lessons learned. Project evaluators were
direction for further study.
appointed to support the team in learning the skills and the value associated with BPE techniques. These experts and the involvement of academic partners effected rigour and impartiality in the research. Some more specific, recurring problems in the early findings include;
CLIENT ENERGY LITERACY Better informed clients are the cornerstone to improved performance. There is a key challenge around energy literacy – EPCs vs. DECs and design vs. operational energy – where methodologies
•
Poor commissioning of LZC technologies
represent different concepts but use the same
•
Widespread sub-metering issues; strategies
graphical language to represent outcomes. The
are not fully thought through or correctly
minutiae of these are not always well understood
implemented and reconciled
by members of the industry and therefore this
•
Failure of demand-controlled ventilation
cannot be expected of clients.
•
Specific fan powers higher than design targets and maximum allowable SFPs
•
Gas-fired
boilers
running
in
non-
condensing mode •
Back up, fossil fuel systems running as lead system
•
Poor commissioning of automated lighting control
Client engagement is vital; many case studies are illustrating scenarios where aspects are paid for but not necessarily fully delivered. An engaged client is more likely to recognise this during construction, commissioning & handover and early occupation. The skills of building occupants are at odds with the complexity of the systems in new buildings; where schools have previously employed caretakers, skilled facilities managers on high salaries are
“Better informed clients are the cornerstone to improved performance. They key challenge is around energy literacy.”
needed to look after new high-tech buildings. Happily, changes in client expectations can be observed throughout the programme. Across the 18 month gap between the 7 funding tranches, the percentage of projects aspiring to BREEAM Very Good ratings went from 50% to 0. Anecdotal results
Air tightness has been found to have changed quite dramatically in many case studies over the two year period; in some this has become worse whilst other
suggest that clients are expecting more but it is the job of industry to help them to expect the right things.
buildings seem to tighten up. A separate study looking into a correlation between this observation
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES
EMERGING THEMES: PROJECT TEAMS
•
A community building where the building user guide and log book have been produced with generic content as a tick-box exercise to satisfy
The BPE programme forces project teams to
regulations and certification criteria, rather
collaborate, which has fostered good insights,
than being produced to meet the building
building optimisation and lower running costs.
needs and be useful to the building occupants
The studies have revealed that complexity starts early through planning and certification rating schemes. Rating schemes can sometimes push designs away from the core design strategy by drawing attention and investment towards ‘easy win’ credits. In many cases there are requirements to install specific items of kit in order to gain planning consent. The incorrect specification of technologies can often be installed as a result of funding requirements – where the funding for a
“The net cost benefit across the M&S estate is £465 million a third of which is from the buildings. Overzealous supply chains have been observed – particularly in the domestic sector. This introduces unnecessary complexity to the system that was not intended from the outset and challenges become
certain technology can only be secured by the
compounded over time.
existence
Finally,
of
another
technology.
Anecdotal
evidence from the early findings includes; •
performing
A school where requirements over external acoustics lead to a sealed-box, mechanically ventilated approach. In operation, occupants
•
•
Innovate
UK
are
in-depth,
finding
that
collaborative
after
building
performance evaluations, the team’s perception of the performance of the case studies remains inflated compared to the evidence. The challenge is
reported that external noise had not been an
to understand the psychology behind this.
issue
ventilation was difficult to control in their new
M&S CHESHIRE OAKS
building, leading to stuffy rooms
Plan A is Marks and Spencer’s environmental
Public buildings where the demonstration of
strategy first launched in 2007, setting out
certain CO2 reductions released financial
commitments for responsible sourcing, waste
incentives. This has led to scenarios where
reduction and helping communities. As a complex
unnecessary technologies, particularly for heat
business supplying goods from many sectors; food,
generation led to over-complexity
clothing, home, beauty products and many others,
Health centres where planning requirements
100 commitments are necessary to address all of
specifying a certain amount of low carbon
the sustainability challenges presented. Twenty five
technology
over
of these relate to the built environment. A third
specification of heat and overly complex
edition, Plan A 2020 has recently been released and
interfaces with central systems
consists
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in
the
original
have
building
resulted
in
but
an
that
of
100
new,
revised
and
existing
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES commitments, with the ultimate goal of becoming
There is a library of other initiatives by M&S
the world's most sustainable major retailer. One of
including closed loop resources, ethical auditing of
the biggest revisions has been the language with
property supply base and the use of BIM to
which promises are expressed; M&S have removed
facilitating off-site fabrication for fit outs. However,
all technical references and now communicate their
upon analysis of their entire supply chain, M&S
promises in language suitable for the average
found that they were responsible for just 16% of the
consumer. The net cost benefit across the M&S
total impact and have since begun to work closely
estate is £465 million a third of which is from the
with their supply chain to reduce the embodied
buildings.
energy and carbon in products and make suppliers’ businesses smarter and more efficient.
“The involvement in the BPE programme was fundamental to the realisation of operational targets at M&S Cheshire Oaks.”
The Marks and Spencer team saw the Building Performance
Evaluation
programme
as
an
opportunity to develop its understanding of building
performance.
When
a
product
is
purchased in their store it comes with a quality All electricity used by M&S in the UK and Ireland is procured from renewable sources. Twenty five percent of this is from small scale sources – such as individual wind farms or anaerobic digestion – and these are often located on farms that supply M&S
guarantee; if a customer finds the product to be faulty in any way, they have the right to a refund from M&S. As this is not possible in the built environment, the BPE programme helped M&S to ensure that their vision for the Cheshire Oaks store
agricultural products, giving the farmers the
was realised.
opportunity to diversify and de-risk their business.
Cheshire Oaks is one of M&S’s Plan A learning
As M&S guarantee the purchase of that energy, the farmers are able to secure the capital for the technology. The company have also made their first purchase of green gas with a view to meeting an initial target of 50%.
stores that had high design aspirations and tough targets of 40% carbon reduction and 42% energy efficient compared to one of their 2010 new builds. A third of the water consumption is served by harvested rainwater, surpassing design targets of
Although they have achieved a 73% reduction in
50%.
refrigeration
In terms of materials, the roof structure is entirely
load
since
2006,
it
remains
responsible for a third of their carbon footprint. There have been efforts to move away from HFC gases and all new stores are built with CO2 refrigeration. Doors on refrigeration units are currently being trialled in stores.
FSC certified glulam beams, walls cassettes, made of hemp, grow 15 miles away from store and much of the aggregate used was taken from other sites. Carbon miles were kept intentionally low with 80% of the packages procured within 25 miles from the store and contributing to the local economy before
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES the store was opened. Due to the high performance
design and actual data for each building and
and careful detailing of the building fabric,
therefore a large statistical sample is necessary to
thermographic tests have shown the temperature
substantiate the magnitude of the performance
difference across the envelope to be only 1 degree
gap. Currently, offices and schools have the largest
Celsius.
datasets on the platform; analysis shows the
Munish Datta, Head of Plan A and Facilities Management for M&S considers the involvement in the BPE programme as fundamental to the realisation of operational targets and the success of
median school in the operational spread has carbon emissions 50% higher than compliance calculations whilst in offices, the median is almost double the compliance figures.
the building. His concerns over the preservation of
Compliance calculations are carried out under
the achieved performance once the project team
standardised conditions: benchmark operating
and evaluators had withdrawn has been dissipated
hours, occupancy, set points and default schedules
since the building continues to show energy
of operation which do not necessarily represent the
reductions year on year.
actual operating conditions. Performance gap sceptics argue that the gap is mainly caused by the
DEFINING & CALCULATING THE PERFORMANCE GAP As it is very difficult to source large-scale datasets of design predictions, the industry convention is to use Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) and Part L figures for these when comparing to operational consumption to ascertain the performance gap. However, these semantics need to be addressed if
lack of a like-for-like comparison between design and actual figures. Esfandiar Burman, an EngD candidate at the UCL Energy Institute has been developing a method by which to apportion the gap between these figures and understand what is caused during building procurement and what can be attributed to operation.
there is any hope of widespread understanding of
Once a building has been in occupied for a year and
the issues as EPCs and Part L documents are
has reached a steady state of operation, a thermal
compliance calculations and do not account for the
model should be developed, calibrated with actual
full set of factors on operational consumption; to
operating conditions and validated with the
call them ‘design predictions’ is a misnomer.
metered energy data. From here, it is possible to
The CarbonBuzz platform is being utilised as the repository for the non-domestic data from the BPE programme. It collects anonymous design and operational building energy consumption data to highlight the performance gap across various sectors. The data set does not necessarily hold both
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work backwards using the model and carry out the compliance calculation again with the calibrated operating figures. If the calibrated compliance calculation is reasonably close to the initial calculations, for example within 5%, it can be concluded that the procurement process has been robust in terms of energy performance. The portion
October 2014
INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES of energy consumption between the compliance calculations
and
the
calibrated
compliance
INDUSTRY CAPACITY &
calculations can be referred to as the ‘procurement
COMPETENCE
gap’ while any consumption between the calibrated
The Green Construction Board (GCB) was set up in
compliance calculations and the total operational
order to drive forward the actions set out in the Low
energy consumption should be referred to as the
Carbon Construction Action plan and also tasked
operational gap.
with driving the delivery of ‘Construction 2025’ and
Any diversion from the (National Calculation Methodology (NCM) standard benchmarks – for example
elongated
operating
hours
–
can
compound the effect of the procurement gap and cause a knock-on effect on the operational gap. Calculations performed by Esfandiar for one of the BPE
education
case
studies
concluded
that
approximately one third of the total gap could be traced
back
to
specific
procurement
its headline target of 50% carbon reduction by 2025.
“One of the key barriers to delivering low carbon construction is a skills gap in responding to changing and future needs.”
issues
One of the key barriers recognised in delivering low
stemming from building design, construction and
carbon construction was a skills gap in responding
commissioning (e.g. flawed control strategy, value
to changing and future needs – both in terms of
engineering, poor commissioning of mechanical
capacity and competence. The knowledge and skills
ventilation systems, ground source heat pumps
group, one of the seven specialist GBC working
lagging behind gas-fired boilers etc.).
groups, commissioned three pieces of work to
Energy consumption is only one factor that should
better understand the challenges. These looked at;
be considered when looking at the performance
1. An overview of the landscape - what are the
gap; occupant comfort, indoor air quality, well-
future needs, current capacity and the gaps
being and productivity are also important aspects
between them?
and should not be compromised for energy
2. Current position in relation to protocols,
reduction. However, the BPE programme and the
metrics and methods of measurement.
research carried out by Esfandiar have illustrated
What role they play in how buildings are
that there are many opportunities for eradicating
delivered and how this might be developed.
energy wastage without impacting on these such as
3. The role of data as a driver for behaviour
shortening operation schedules in line with the actual hours of occupancy.
change The studies concluded that there was a significant lack of knowledge around the performance gap across all sectors. The research also looked at a building’s lifecycle stage-by-stage and across all
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES disciplines in order to establish the biggest gaps
and the biggest opportunities to influence change;
400,000 people left the industry during the recession
the front end client, developer and investor were
200,000 jobs to be filled over next 5 years
identified as the people who could have the biggest
13,500 new apprentices in 2013 – 30% less
influence but also had the largest gap in their understanding
of
building
performance
and
than 2007
17% of workforce are aged over 55
therefore the largest handicap in driving change. The reports highlighted that certification standards such as BREEAM were being utilised as black box pseudo-protocols due to a dearth of protocols and a lack of understanding of various metrics. They also conclude that there is a lot of building data available but it is not well mined and utilised. There is a great depth of understanding about buildings and physical science but that this knowledge sits with a narrow section of people and is not widespread. The major skills shortage is a compound problem of factors. New and enhanced skills are needed for specialist building materials and low energy requirements introduce an increased need for expert, technical and professional skills. Modern methods of construction and the more prolific use
THE WAY FORWARD Robert Lambe of the Green Construction Board’s knowledge and skills group sees the subject of building performance as a possible route to incentivising more people to join the industry. He would like to see established learning routes being better
utilised
to
raise
understanding
and
competence across all disciplines to deliver better buildings. Mainstream training must be influenced including;
apprenticeship
graduate
programmes,
programmes, professional
NVQs, institute
courses and continuous professional development (CPD). A significant and complementary part of the challenge is to increase the demand for skills; better understanding of building performance including the impact on productivity and wellbeing is a key element of driving this.
of off-site construction methods cause changes in
Innovate UK will be collating the output data from
the mix of skills required, while automated tools
the BPE projects over the next 6 – 9 months but
require new skills and make others redundant. The
recognises that the sector finds the transfer of
workforce is ageing and key skills are being lost
knowledge challenging. Dissemination will be key to
through retirement; there is a need to attract young
maximising the value of the programme. There are
entrants
has
a suite of applications and tools that will be used to
increased the supply of labour and skills, increased
capture the data such as CarbonBuzz which will be
international competition and has provided an
used to capture the building energy data for the
increased export market for goods and services.
non-domestic projects and Embed for domestic
Some facts on skills in the construction industry:
projects. The Knowledge Transfer Network will be
to
the
industry.
Globalisation
widely used for more qualitative results.
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES Esfandiar Burman concludes that, while projects in
purpose. Where problems exist, business cases for
the programme ran for a significant period of time
interventions are predicated from the angle of
and were very in-depth, the methods developed
business continuity: a real and financial risk to
and utilised are directly transferrable to more
commercial organisations.
commercial situations. In this way, it would be possible to condense a BPE study to a much shorter period such as a fortnight and still gain insights that can form the basis of a significant increase in performance.
The National Energy Foundation (NEF) are an independent, national charity aiming to offer knowledge, support in improving understanding and better use of energy in buildings. They have been working hard on developing mechanisms to
At M&S, targets have been tightened following their
help interpret BPE findings for potential ‘game
involvement in the BPE programme and the
changers’.
success of the Cheshire Oaks Store. The project has
Performance Exchange on the NEF website which
instilled in them the confidence to roll out LED
will be populated with BPE learning outcomes and
retrofit lighting through their estate; 100 stores will
other knowledge and experiences outside of that.
They
have
set
up
the
Building
be LED by April 2015. Other aspects from their Plan A learning stores have been trialled in 4 Simply
The NEF also recognise the importance of energy
Food stores including heat reclaim from fridges to
literacy, particularly in clients. An energy literacy
ambient temperature, green walls fed by rainwater
survey they commissioned in September 2014
harvesting and other methods for increasing
concluded that 18-24 year olds are the group with
biodiversity. There is also a changing approach to
the lowest energy literacy scores; a worrying finding
investment; historically the focus has been on
given that this group are about to enter the work
capital investment, however the BPE project has
place, become bill payers, buy houses and be
confirmed that it is not effective to operate in silos
forced to make energy choices. At present they are
and whole life performance
- including carbon,
not fully equipped to be asking the right questions.
maintenance, water and demounting costs - is now
In response, they have been working with the Duke
of much larger concern.
of Edinburgh Award Scheme to develop an ‘energy
Energy, water, waste and recycling now form part of the key performance indicators for each store manager and therefore savings have been explicitly linked to their bonus. M&S have had fantastic results on engaging their supply chain and continue
in buildings’ module. The intention is to educate the client base in order to create a ‘pull factor’ for increased building and energy performance to work in tandem with the industry push to develop in this area.
to develop improvements in the way this is carried out. Finally, they are beginning a drive to assess their building stock against future climate scenarios in order to ascertain if their property is fit-for-
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INNOVATE UK BPE OUTCOMES
RESOURCES 1. Knowledge Transfer Network resource on the Building Performance Evaluation programme: connect.innovateuk.org/web/buildingperformance-evaluation 2. Zero Carbon Hub - End of Term Report: www.zerocarbonhub.org/sites/default/files/res ources/reports/Design_vs_As_Built_Performan ce_Gap_End_of_Term_Report_0.pdf 3. Aldersgate Group - Skills for a New Economy: www.aldersgategroup.org.uk/asset/download/ 1225/Skills%20for%20a%20New%20Economy. pdf 4. Sector Skills - Build Up Skills: www.buildupskillsuk.org 5. London Chamber of Commerce & Industry Skills to Build: www.londonchamber.co.uk/research/Skillstob uil 6. Burman, E., Mumovic, D., and Kimpian, J., 2014. Towards measurement and verification of energy performance under the framework of the European Directive for Energy Performance of Buildings, Energy 77 (2014) 153-163 7. NEF Building Performance Exchange: http://www.nef.org.uk/building-performanceexchange/
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