Occupied buildings - Performance assessment & the raise of sensor technologies: Why? How? and...The benefits?

Occupied buildings - Performance assessment & the rise of sensor technologies:
Why? How? and...The benefits? What everyone wants:
Low carbon buildings- more, quicker, and with a low defect rate, whilst reducing costs Deployments experiences – beyond pilots Inferring meaning from data Remarks Apportioning consumption (thus making judgments) to fabric, systems and behaviour/lifestyle/preferences needs accurate well specified measurement.

Environmental Data can be obtained, Knowledge is hard to be inferred.

Pioneers stand to gain – insight - early understanding – market leadership. Elena Gaura &
Ross Wilkins “What can be measured can be evaluated, improved, directed – in short managed.”
(Lord Kelvin) Not everything that can be counted counts, not everything that counts can be counted.”
(Albert Einstein) Period: mostly heating period with some summer samples.
Environmental quality monitoring and energy auditing.
Deployment duration- variable (24 months).
20 million+ data points; yield 95%. 50+ Social/owned/privately rented
Victorian to PassivHaus; bungalows, terraced, detached, apartments.
Heating systems: ground source, air source, gas central, mixed, district heating schemes.
Occupants: age groups – from 1 to 70; family sizes – from 2 to 7. Passiv Homes or Passiv Living? Inferring meaning from data - system diagnosis Towards... The tools - Wireless networked sensors Buildings assessment: SUSTAINS and DECENT HOMES Cogent's Perspective on Buildings and Carbon Cuts: the facts and the standpoints • The facts:

– Specified and Occupied: the performance gap is a reality - causes are anecdotal though...
– Buildings don't consume energy, people do! and...
– People are different - we all wear different carbon shoes (mostly by choice but sometimes by force...)
– Believing in “green” doesn't make us “green”
– New technologies don't always do what is said on the tin • The Standpoints:

– You can not cut what you have not measured (and understood...)
– Homes are a complex systems problem: fabric, systems, people and multiple interactions
– Data is power ... IF it has statistical validity
– The sensing technology is here - USE IT Assessment & evaluation Cheap
Easy to use
Infrastructure free
Flexible, evolving Portable
Drop and go
Unobtrusive
Knowledge generators Occupied Buildings:
Simple DATA vs Complex KNOWLEDGE Space Challenges
unclear informational needs
lack of holistic metrics
complex phenomena: energy, building fabric, heating/cooling systems and PEOPLE
unattended operation/limited access post deployment
long-lived robust systems
large scale networks (over 200 nodes)
mix of wireless protocols
evolving needs for additional sensing modalities
dealing with the client - knowledge transfer and requirements negotiation
Innovations
designing with patterns
transmission suppression - SIP
knowledge driven design - BN
failure monitoring tools (Heartbeat)
occupant-focused sustainability assessment methods - MAKE
holistic metrics for building fabric performance assessment (heating/cooling curves; time exposure)
end-user archiving and analysis tools The holy grail – quantifying dependencies Carbon footprint reduction is not about BUILDINGS, but OCCUPIED BUILDINGS comfort house efficiency fuel poverty health lifestyle building
fabric heating
system tenant
behavior Thank you ! Any questions? Reasoning about energy and environment Using More Energy
Higher level of comfort Using Less Energy
Lower level of comfort Understanding homes in terms of quantified information Identical House – Always Occupied
Lower Energy Used, Lower Comfort Identical House – Always Occupied
More energy Used, Higher Comfort Getting the right data – Where, what and how long for? Using the data right Open research question: Defining Holistic approaches to assessment Integrative of sub-systems interactions: climate, fabric, mechanical systems and PEOPLE - new science, tools and data are key.

Stages:
Understand interactions, effects, drivers, attitudes.
Build and roll out appropriate instrumentation – heavily constrained by application (privacy, ethics, opportunity, cost, utility, portability, long shelf life, robustness, re-use, end-user adoption).
Build large data banks - archetypes (buildings, systems and people).
Develop new informational metrics (assessment and diagnosis, comparative assessment).
Develop solution sets – generate knowledge from information (education, measures costs efficiency, contextualized strategies).
Roll out solutions and loop and refine. Opportunity, tools and data Opportunity:
Large stock owners, community driven associations.

Tools:
Strong WSN devices market; mostly DIY, research instruments; expensive services for data collection and return.
Need for detailed instrumentation systems specification, integrative of drivers for energy consumption in residential buildings.

Data:
Shift from “observational” approaches to fully fledged statistical approaches based on new metrics. Privacy: My home is my castle Habits Living choices Duty of care Inferring meaning from data - the building envelope Inferring meaning from data- Decent Home/ Decent Living? Inferring Knowledge from Information – cost of comfort Choices Diagnosis Focused action Education Results
productised end-to-end monitoring system
250 node on-site network (23 co-located homes) for over 15 months
63.1% yield - 22.5% loss from occupant intervention, 11.3% loss from vandalism, 2.7% loss from maintenance issues. Only 0.4% loss due to network or sensor issues.
Impact
Industry - adoption and change of current practice How do people live? 21.75 kWh/day 7.23 kWh/day Date Date kWh kWh Time Time