EXCEED GUIDELINES PROJECT FINDINGS AND TECHNICAL … · Roberto Lollini, EURAC Daniele Antonucci,...

EXCEED GUIDELINES PROJECT FINDINGS AND TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

Authors:Roberto Lollini, EURACDaniele Antonucci, EURACGloria Peasso, EURACThiago Nuic, WatticsBernard Huberlant, 3E

Review and editing teamRoberta D’Angiolella, BPIEEvan Jeffries, Swim2birds

Graphic designIne Baillieul - karteblanche.be

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 723858

Disclaimer: The sole responsibility for the content of this material lies with the authors. It does not necessarily represent the views of the European Union, and neither EASME nor the European Commission are responsible for any use of this material.

Copyright 2019, ExcEED. Any reproduction in full or in part of this publication must mention the full title and author and credit ExcEED as the copyright owner. All rights reserved.

1. Executive summary 5

2. Introduction 6

3. Data management 8

4. Uploading, storing and preserving data in the ExcEED database 12

5. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for building characterization 14 and necessary data and metadata

6. The ExcEED platform and its database: dashboard and tools, 17 clustering, benchmarking, post-occupancy evaluation (POE)

7. How to read building performance 20

8. Common anomalies in operational building BMS 24

9. Validation of rating methodologies and assumptions – 25 a return on experience to stakeholders

10. Conclusions 26

CONTENTS

ExcEED Guidelines - project findings and technical solutions | 3

1EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The purpose of the H2020 ExcEED project builds on the statement that there is a lack of structured and comprehensive set of building data, which can be used to elaborate useful information and knowledge for market players and policy makers. Moreover, most buildings show lower energy performance than originally planned, because of their design and/or their use.The innovative and dynamic platform developed by ExcEED helps responding to this need for transparency and comparability of building energy performance calculation. Facility managers, designers and policy makers are the stakeholders that could benefit the most from the platform.

The free collaborative platform gathers, categorizes, visualizes and benchmarks multiple types of building data from its users. The buildings’ monitoring data, uploaded by the users, is transformed into knowledge with energy performance indicators, benchmarks and air quality surveys. This benefits the users as well as other stakeholders from the building sector and civil society by improving the efficiency of their buildings.

The present ExcEED Guidelines aim to support building users and professionals to navigate through the features of the platform, which consists of:

• A European database collecting data from buildings

• A front-end dashboard with integrated analytical tools

• A collection of building Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• A set of tools that allows geo-clustered, statistical and knowledge analysis of building data

• A benchmarking function to analyse building interaction

• An Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) survey to evaluate occupants’ perception of indoor comfort.

The Guidelines work through all these components, highlighting the benefits that different stakeholders can gain from them. They also explain how data is treated when it’s uploaded into the dashboard and used within the ExcEED tools.

In October 2019, the ExcEED platform changes its name to “enbuibench”, standing for “energy and comfort building performance characterization and benchmarking platform”.

ExcEED Guidelines - project findings and technical solutions | 5

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the building sector have more than doubled since 1970. Following the Paris Agreement – that aims to limit global warming to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels – the EU committed to cut its GHG emissions to net zero by 2050. Buildings have a huge role to play in reaching this target, as they are currently responsible for 40% of the energy consumed and 36% of the CO2 emitted in the EU.

As a result, at EU level there is a pressing need to learn from what we are doing, or have recently done, to improve the quality and performance of the future building sector.

The EU-funded ExcEED project was launched because of a lack of structured and comprehensive building data for market players and policy makers to use. In addition, most buildings show lower energy performance than expected, because of their design and/or their use. By streamlining existing data relating to buildings and their uses – meta-data, in effect – the ExcEED platform raises awareness of how different kinds of buildings perform in practice, and provides information on how to bridge the gap between design intentions and real-world performance. Its findings can be used to enhance buildings’ energy efficiency, while also ensuring healthy and comfortable indoor environments.

2INTRODUCTION

THE EXCEED PLATFORM AND ITS TOOLS WILL SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS – BUILDING AND FACILITY MANAGERS, DESIGNERS, ENERGY ADVISORS, REAL ESTATE DEVELOPERS, RESEARCHERS, AND POLICY MAKERS – IN HANDLING MEANINGFUL BUILDING DATA, TRANSFORMING IT IN INFORMATION AND USABLE KNOWLEDGE TO CREATE ENERGY-EFFICIENT, HEALTHY AND COMFORTABLE INDOOR BUILT ENVIRONMENTS.

To achieve these goals, the platform has been designed with 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, simple actionable insights on energy performance and sustainability in the building sector

• A collection of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can “transform building data into information”

• A set of tools that allow geo-clustered, statistical and knowledge analysis of building data

• A benchmarking function to analyse building interaction

• An IEQ survey to evaluate occupants’ perception of indoor comfort.

The ExcEED platform is unique because it embeds all these elements in its framework: it’s the first European comprehensive platform handling buildings meta-data and performance data for state-of-the-art buildings. It offers its users the following functionalities:

• Visualisation of the energy and comfort data of a building or multiple buildings

• Evaluation of building performance through 27 KPIs, developed to accommodate different user behaviours and contexts

• Comprehensive benchmarking through a range of combinations of KPIs and uploaded data

• Clustering of buildings in relation to selected KPIs

• Analysis of building occupants’ perceptions of their indoor environment through a dedicated IEQ survey.

THE EU-FUNDED EXCEED PROJECT WAS LAUNCHED BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF STRUCTURED AND COMPREHENSIVE BUILDING DATA FOR MARKET PLAYERS AND POLICY MAKERS TO USE.

6 | ExcEED Guidelines - project findings and technical solutions ExcEED Guidelines - project findings and technical solutions | 7

The ExcEED data management plan (DPM) clarifies how project results are dealt with and how data are treated, including its collection, organization, use, storage, contextualisation, preservation and sharing. First the DMP defines the types of data involved and the methods used to collect and harmonize them, and second it explains how the ExcEED platform working team deals with challenges related to data management and publications (mainly, in line with the guidelines on FAIR Data Management defined in H2020).

Why is data so important?

Users upload data to populate the platform. Once the database gathers a meaningful amount of high quality data it is possible to run building performance analysis. Users can get more FREE benefits from the ExcEED platform features in return for uploading their building data.

In addition, if users want to perform data geo-clusterisation and benchmarking, the platform needs an even huger data collection campaign, including data coming from building monitoring systems and available external existing databases. Data covers aspects such as location, building construction technology, envelope systems, HVAC and electrical installations, meters/sensors, equipment and monitoring & control devices, as well as usage patterns, certification & compliance and financials.

The data can be uploaded by individual users or can be sent directly to the database from the building monitoring or management systems via FTP or API connections.

ONCE THE DATABASE GATHERS A MEANINGFUL AMOUNT OF HIGH QUALITY DATA IT IS POSSIBLE TO RUN BUILDING PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS.

3DATA MANAGEMENT

Two categories of data will be requested from users who want to use the features of the ExcEED platform:

A. METADATAinformation characterizing a single building, e.g. Name*, Address*, Building type*, Building height*, heating system, energy source etc. Only data marked with an asterisk(*) are mandatory.

B. MONITORING DATAinformation from building monitoring systems. This data can be divided in two levels:

• Private data, i.e. data uploaded by the user and visible only to themselves

• Shared data, i.e. data used to calculate KPIs for benchmarking and geo-cluster tools.

It’s important to note that users can calculate the 27 building KPIs only if they provide the following specific data:

• Thermal energy consumption of building (heating and cooling)

• Power consumption of generator(s)

• Electricity consumption of overall building, lights, appliances, mechanical ventilation, generator

• Indoor temperature, indoor humidity, CO2 concentration, illuminance

• External temperature, heating degree days (HDD), cooling degree days (CDD)

• Flow rate of mechanical ventilation.


Is data uploaded to the ExcEED platform secure?

The ExcEED consortium has always been well aware that data security is a crucial issue when anyone is invited to upload “their” sensitive information onto a digital platform.

ExcEED acts as a cloud provider offering services to end-users such as building and facility managers, designers and researchers. It takes care of all data processing aspects on behalf of the user organization (apart from raw data inputted by individual users), and provides it with access to an IT infrastructure, an operating system and the software needed to process the data itself. The model addresses three key issues during system implementation:

1. Data security

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU directive that came into full force on 25 May 2018. GDPR requires the creation of a data protection officer at all companies that operate with “regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects on a large scale”, which indirectly falls within the scope of ExcEED services. In particular, energy research activities involving consumers’ personal data will be subject to GDPR requirements. Access to data sets may need to be restricted and the right to be forgotten may be invoked by consumers.

2. Privacy policy

To be in line with the EU data protection law, a written contract has been signed by Eurac and Wattics, the latter being the data cloud provider. The contract defines the measures taken to guarantee the security of personal data processed inside or outside the European Union.

3. Informative consent

The registration process on the ExcEED platform obliges the user to agree to a GDPR-compliant informative form.

It is important to stress that ExcEED data analysis always preserves the security and privacy of the data. Only data for the geocluster and the benchmarking tools is available to all users – there’s a dedicated section on the platform where this data can be visualized (https://dashboard.ExcEEDproject.eu/). Limitations apply on any data that may raise privacy concerns.

In fact, the benchmarking and clustering tools only use anonymized and aggregated building data. In addition, the map facility does not allow users to visualize the precise address of a building, but only the general area in which it is located.

Access to the platform is provided by a registration form available on the ExcEED website.

When a user registers on the platform, a dedicated ExcEED Customer Support team checks the information provided and mails the user their personal platform credentials and the ExcEED data-upload manual (a document that shows users how to upload data to the platform).

Is the ExcEED platform analysis useful for YOU?

The available data processing can be useful to a range of stakeholders.

In general, for the European Commission and policy makers (national or local), the ExcEED platform is an interesting instrument that can help to evaluate a building before and after an (either equity or debt) investment.

It is, however, important to highlight that ExcEED needs a consistent supply of building cases to (easily) demonstrate its clear added value to private target users.

European Commission, as ExcEED is the EU-funded solution that can gather all the information coming from monitoring systems of different buildings and from several EU-financed projects, into a single database.

Facility managers to automate their reporting duties and obtain valuable information that will give them new insights on the global portfolio of buildings with similar features. They can optimise building control and performance.

Typically, the facility managers should use the ExcEED system once a month when monthly reports on energy use are due.

Building designers to highlight the inefficiencies and elements of non-quality in the latest generation of buildings.

Researchers to analyse actual building energy performance and indoor environmental quality. While uploading data, they’re also supporting the sustainability and maintenance of an EU initiative.


Every year the EU finances many projects on energy-efficient buildings. Key elements in these projects are the demonstration cases used to prove the effectiveness of new technology, solutions or designs. However, the lack of standardization in collecting and saving the resulting building energy data makes this information difficult to find and analyse in future projects. The ExcEED platform offers a solution to this problem, since ExcEED partners have created a standard procedure to collect, tag and save building energy data and other information in the database.

The ability to integrate data streams and sets from a variety of data collection systems, files and repositories is a key element in the ExcEED platform’s success. The ExcEED cloud-based platform supports a portfolio of data integration mechanisms and ensures that all data uploaded by the end-users is seamlessly incorporated with industry-standard communication interfaces.

Data integration via REST API

The ExcEED platform is designed to integrate measurements from meters, BMS, head end systems, databases and other data providers. The platform’s REST API allows those data systems to interact with the backend programmatically, over simple HTTP requests. This means that users can automate data push to the ExcEED platform from their own data systems.

4UPLOADING, STORING AND PRESERVING DATA IN THE EXCEED DATABASE

Incoming data streams are processed in real time through back-end analytics engines to unify and synchronize readings to a common time granularity. As such, original measurements are immediately available to end-users on the platform’s web-based dashboard.

Data integration via REST FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard protocol used for transmitting files between computers on the internet over TCP/IP. FTP allows energy data in .CSV file format to be pushed automatically and periodically to ExcEED’s FTP server. Most head end systems, gateways, PLCs, BMS, DCIMs, etc natively support FTP data push, making it an easy choice for data integration to the ExcEED platform.

The platform supports all types of energy readings and any numeric value such as environmental parameters, metrics, production output, etc.

The process to import data via FTP works as follows:

• If the user has .CSV files containing interval energy use data from an energy supplier or exported from an industry-leading BMS/ SCADA system, they can review if that data source is already supported in the platform’s list of templates.

• If the user is not sure whether the data source is supported, they can send a sample .CSV file format to the ExcEED team for review.

• If the user can adapt their .CSV file format output to one of the supported formats themselves, then the ExcEED team will assist them in that process so they can start immediately.

Once the format of the .CSV file is supported, the ExcEED team issues FTP credentials for the end-user to push data to the platform. End-users must then configure their data system to push data to the ExcEED platform, using the FTP credentials provided.

Data integration via .CSV file

The ExcEED cloud dashboard is designed to let users integrate data manually, so that historical data and readings taken by hand on-site are combined with measurements gathered through automated data collection systems.

Typically, as with all systems, power measurements must be assigned to an entity, such as a piece of equipment or a location.

Say you have in your possession a .CSV file that you downloaded from your supplier’s website, which contains the Utility kWh readings of your premises for each 15mn of the past three years. You will want such readings to be integrated and appear under your organization’s entity. Same if you have a record of manual meter readings taken from the water meter monitoring the supply of the kitchen area. You will want the manual readings to be integrated and appear below the kitchen entity within your ExcEED dashboard.


Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) reflect projects’ goals and provide means for the measurement and management of the progress towards those goals for further learning and improvement. KPIs are defined in the Statement of Requirements for a building, which guide design development, comparing design solutions and supporting the decision-making process.

KPIs are defined to measure the performance of buildings and provide easily accessible and useful information about buildings and their parts. With the aim of creating a stable return of knowledge from the latest generation of buildings for building designers, facility managers and policy makers, the ExcEED platform needs proper performance indicators as the backbone for its mechanism. The indicators present to professionals easy-to-read and meaningful information that points toward weaknesses or strength points of a technical solution, control strategy, building system or policy.

The indicators have the following principles:

• They assist the decision-making process during the design phase• They are usable by different actors: policy makers,

professional designers, building energy managers and building owners

• They allow database users to compare and contrast different options

• They are flexible, multipurpose and generic in nature, and usable on different building typologies

• They are easy to use and visualize with clear charts• They reflect specific issues that could have an impact on the

latest and future generations of buildings and on their diffusion• They are measurable and technically valid (quantitative

criteria or qualitative converted to quantitative)

KPIs ARE DEFINED TO MEASURE THE PERFORMANCE OF BUILDINGS AND PROVIDE EASILY ACCESSIBLE AND USEFUL INFORMATION ABOUT BUILDINGS AND THEIR PARTS.

5KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs) FOR BUILDING CHARACTERIZATION AND NEEDED DATA AND METADATA

Based on these criteria, dedicated KPIs have been chosen to evaluate the performances of everything from a single HVAC component to a building’s local grid interaction.

European projects, standards and scientific papers have been evaluated to identify and collect the most important KPIs. The KPIs were classified in six categories: thermal and electric energy, renewable energy, comfort (thermal, acoustic and air quality), economic, technological and environmental. For each category, the KPIs were catalogued based on four indexes: component classification, target group, building type and expert classification.

Among the KPIs collected from around 130 sources, and with the help of experts from different fields, we selected the 27 most useful indicators to evaluate the performance of the latest generation of buildings:

1. Overall heating consumption per floor area2. Total cooling energy consumption per floor area3. Heating consumption per square meter and heating degree days4. Total cooling consumption per square meter and cooling degree days5. Max power of generator (used for heating) normalized by square meter6. Max power of generator (used for cooling) normalized by square meter7. Number of overheating hours during the heating season8. Number of overheating hours during the cooling season9. Number of overcooling hours during cooling season10. Overall electricity consumption of the building per square meter11. Overall electricity consumption for lighting per square meter12. Electricity consumption of indoor lighting per square meter13. Overall electricity consumption of appliances per square meter14. Electricity consumption of mechanical ventilation systems normalized by

square meter15. Flow rate of mechanical ventilation normalized by square meter16. Heat pump seasonal efficiency17. CO2 concentration ranges18. Percentage of the time CO2 exceeds limit19. Energy production of solar thermal system vs Thermal energy

consumption of the building20. Electricity production of photovoltaic system vs overall electricity

consumption of the building21. Energy production of renewable energy system vs overall energy

consumption of the building22. Primary energy generated by Renewable energy system vs primary

energy consumed by the building23. Energy Signature24. Visual Comfort25. Temperature profile26. Humidity profile27. Energy performance rate

27

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• ExcEED unified data collector layer: composed of multiple microservices to collect data from a range of devices and services. This part makes sure the data is translated into one unified format to be processed and analysed.

• Elaborator and analytics layer: this part receives the unified formatted data from the multiple data collectors and processes it into something that can be easily and quickly queried by the users. These layers also power the Sentinel Machine Learning Engine and the alerts tools.

• Dashboard: the main web interface through which all users interact with the tool. Within this interface the users can take advantage of different functionalities to better understand their data and to draw conclusions from it. Several modules were implemented to comply with predefined use cases, and more after further meetings with the partners.

• Geo-clustering tool: this module is responsible for gathering all the data imported by the users of the ExcEED tool, and grouping it. Using machine learning algorithms, it can create benchmark analysis to provide users with relevant and meaningful comparisons of their data against the rest of the database.

• Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) survey tool: an auxiliary module to allow the users to conduct standardized site surveys to analyse building efficiency.

6THE EXCEED PLATFORM AND ITS DATABASE: DASHBOARD AND TOOLS, CLUSTERING, BENCHMARKING, POST-OCCUPANCY EVALUATION (POE)

THE DATA INTERFACE

ARCHITECTURE WAS DESIGNED

TO BE EXTENSIBLE AND FLEXIBLE TO

ACCEPT NEW DATA REQUIREMENTS,

TECHNOLOGIES AND FUNCTIONALITIES.

The ExcEED platform is composed of the following high-level components:

Figure 1: ExcEED KPIs

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

ELECTRIC ENERGY

INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL

QUALITY

RENEWABLE ENERGY

TECHNOLOGYENVIRONMENT THERMAL ENERGY

THE KE Y PERFORMANCE INDIC ATOR S (KPIs) WILL BE USED IN THE E xcEED DATABA SE TO QUANTIFY AND BENCHMARK THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AT BUILDING AND DISTRICT LEVEL.

27 KPIs6

CATEGORIES

YOU WOULD GET:

Privileged access to the ExcEED databaseFree KPIs and clustering Specific benchmarks

The more the data, the higher the value of the database:

GET IN TOUCH WITH THE PROJECT!

USABLE BY DIFFERENT ACTORS

FLEXIBLE, MULTIPURPOSE, APPLICABLE TO DIFFERENT TYPES OF BUILDINGS

USEFUL FOR FILTERING DATA, BENCHMARKING AND CLUSTERING OF BUILDINGS FOR SPECIFIC ANALYSES

USEFUL TO HIGHLIGHT ISSUES IMPACTING FUTURE BUILDINGS

WhyKPIs?

Do you want to contribute with buildings datato the ExcEED

database?

www.exceedproject.eu


Different actors can use these multiple tools, as explained below.

Designers

Building designers find in the ExcEED platform the resources to understand better their building consumptions, compare with simulations and benchmark against similar buildings. Using the breakdown, a designer can compare multiple buildings of their own and normalize against different variables including HDD and CDD. If there’s a need for more complex simulations, it’s possible to load the data into the Formula Composer and make multiple analyses with the live data. In order to better understand how buildings compare against other buildings with similar conditions, it’s possible to access the geo-clustering tool to select geographical areas and look for them. Another way to understand how to improve the building conditions is by running an IEQ survey, available from the ExcEED dashboard. There the designers find a template survey which gives useful insights regarding the perception of the building users on the environmental conditions.

Facility managers

Using the ExcEED platform, facility managers can assess how the buildings in their portfolio perform against each other and other buildings under the same conditions. The first step is to upload the data and add the requested metadata. The more information that’s provided, the more it will be possible to extract from the platform. Once the data is imported, the facility managers will be able to compare the portfolio using the Breakdown, check the temperature in multiple places and normalize using HDD or CDD. The ExcEED dashboard allows the user to obtain the result of 27 predefined KPIs which will give meaningful insights about how the buildings are performing. To simulate what-if scenarios, users/analysts will be able to access the Operations Analyser, simulate changes and how much savings those would provide. Furthermore, users can compare their own portfolio with other buildings under the same conditions based on the metadata, KPIs and geographical location using the geo-clustering tool.

Researchers

Energy market actors and energy efficiency researchers can use the ExcEED platform in different ways. It allows them to easily compare their data in the Breakdown and apply complex formulas in the Formula Composer. They can find correlations between multiple datasets and propose improvements based on the results. It is also possible to compare multiple buildings based on their geographic location to understand how they perform against each other and how different technologies work under various climate conditions. Researchers can also find out about how technology and design decisions influence the well-being of the building occupants by running an IEQ survey.

When signing up to the ExcEED platform as a user, you first register your site(s), building(s) and devices, for which you will later manually input metadata and automatically upload monitoring data. You’ll have access to a user-friendly interface where your data can be uploaded with maximum safety. The user interface is divided in three sections:

1. The dashboard homepage section that shows you general information

2. The data section where data and metadata can be uploaded following the instructions

3. The analytics section where data is handled, processed and analysed

The data interface architecture was designed to be extensible and flexible to accept new data requirements, technologies and functionalities. For this reason, the data management within the platform includes a basic data integrity check, synchronization and aggregation engines designed to process any kind of data, from electrical, gas and water readings to any numeric readings such as operations and environmental data.

The breakdown analysis tool can be used to understand, extract, compare and visualize the monitoring data uploaded. The tool can be used to compare, for instance, simulated consumption for a certain building with the actual data collected. The breakdowns show building energy use and associated cost, and benchmark it against the energy performance of similar buildings within the same climate zone, size, market or other metric. It is possible to evaluate savings by increasing and decreasing trends over several time periods.

The operations analyser tool allows you to simulate behaviours by turning on and off the consumption in parts of the day. This way it’s possible to estimate consumption and cost savings doing a what-if analysis. The tool is useful to quickly evaluate patterns of power consumption and when peak load happens. Through the platform, you’re also able to set notifications and alerts in order to keep track of the consumption and cost.

The formula composer tool allows users to create and analyse multiple KPIs against their data. In the first input the user can insert a simple or complex formula and get the results immediately. Another feature within this tool is the ability to correlate data or even formulas. Once the user has defined a KPI they can then create a new data point for it. This will make the platform evaluate the formula every time new data comes in and give the user the results to be analysed by the other tools, for example breakdown, operations analyser and alerts.

YOU’LL HAVE ACCESS TO A USER-FRIENDLY INTERFACE WHERE YOUR DATA CAN BE UPLOADED WITH MAXIMUM SAFET


Geo-cluster tool: having uploaded building data and metadata to the platform, the user can select (under the icon “Tools”) the geocluster tool. The tool guides users in understanding which innovative solutions have led to operational building performance in line with expectations.

By using the geo-cluster tool, the user can also compare performances across multiple buildings. The aim is to have a better understanding of a building’s operational behaviour both in terms of energy and IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality). This knowledge can potentially support better management and generate energy and cost savings, as well as improve the indoor environmental quality. Geo-clustered data is extremely valuable for highlighting trans-national similarities and providing useful information to policy makers and legislative bodies for tailored policy decisions. The KPIs are central to this tool as they provide easily accessible and useful information about a building’s real performance.

The Geo-cluster tool enables any user to:

• Visualize the energy and comfort information of their building

• Compare their building’s performance through the use of 27 well-defined KPIs

• Cluster buildings (see Figure 3) according to selected KPIs and get the results on a map

The dashboard is designed with various features:

KPI calculation: having uploaded building data and metadata to the platform, the user can calculate any of the 27 KPIs related to building performance, with the results visualized on the dashboard (Figure 2)

Figure 2 - KPI calculation icon in the ExcEED dashboard

THE EXCEED FRONT-END DASHBOARD PROVIDES CLEAR, SIMPLE ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS TO SUPPORT DECISION-MAKING FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY.

The ExcEED platform enables energy professionals and non-experts to benchmark buildings’ energy use and comfort level against best practice and other buildings with similar features. Possible performance gaps are highlighted but the comparison can enable renovation measures to save energy and related costs by achieving the actual potential performance rate (benchmark).

Key aspects of the ExcEED platform

The ExcEED platform has been created with a specific structure and elements that together allow users to read the energy performance of buildings.

The ExcEED front-end dashboard provides clear, simple actionable insights to support decision-making for energy efficiency and environmental quality, from design to operational phase. The dashboard is connected with a robust and reliable database, where building data is uploaded, collected, stored, preserved and secured.

7HOW TO READ BUILDING PERFORMANCE


The IEQ tool is another feature embedded in the dashboard under the icon “Tools”.

It consists of a web-based IEQ survey that collects information coming from the most valuable sensor in a building – its occupants. Occupant surveys are a fundamental source of information for improving building performances. Surveys provide insights on which design feature is or is not working, and help to prioritize intervention to improve occupants’ satisfaction.

The confidential survey includes questions about thermal comfort, acoustic and visual comfort, indoor air quality perception, and satisfaction with regard to different elements in the building. It also includes questions on sick building syndromes (SBS).

The survey is structured to provide useful information on building operation strategies or design features to highlight efficiencies and inefficiencies and to point toward better solutions.

This tool can be useful for building managers and professionals to improve the indoor environmental conditions of a building (building performance), and for researchers to better understand the causes of the most common SBS.

Figure 3 - Clusterisation made by a user using the ExcEED dashboard.

In addition to these functions, the Geo-cluster tool allows the user to perform a benchmarking analysis both on energy and IEQ. Benchmarks provide a basis on which you can evaluate the performance of your building. You can either decide to define a benchmark (see Figure 4) including all available buildings on the platform with the same intended use (offices, shopping centres, residential buildings, etc), or to analyze data on your own building by comparing its performance in different periods, or to compare it to other buildings in your portfolio.

Figure 4 - Benchmarking selecting KPI: “Heating consumption… days” made by an user using the ExcEED dashboard.

Users can visualize building performance KPIs .


Once a significant amount of building data is available on the ExcEED platform, selected KPIs will help energy professionals and policy makers to validate their assumptions and calculations.

KPIs such as overall heating or cooling consumption per m², compared to regulatory (EPB) values for new buildings, should provide valuable feedback regarding:

• Validation of policy targets and ambitions (e.g. do buildings reach the maximum benchmark, or do they stick to the minimum?). If the aggregated data is mainly on one side of the spectrum, policy needs to be adapted (max percentage in high benchmark = policy requirement not demanding enough, max percentage in low benchmark = policy too demanding)

• The gap between design and as-built performance, validating the reference values (EPB benchmark).

Accessing detailed operational (aggregated) data allows assumptions to be verified, especially fixed values such as hours/y of heating, lighting and more.

9VALIDATION OF RATING METHODOLOGIES AND ASSUMPTIONS – A RETURN ON EXPERIENCE TO STAKEHOLDERS

!

8COMMON ANOMALIES IN OPERATIONAL BUILDING BMS

The ExcEED platform can also help detect anomalies in buildings’ operations, such as:

• Sensor issues (extreme values, out of boundary values)

• Wrong system response to sensor inputs (e.g. heating on while indoor temperature is above setpoint)

• Setpoint validation (heating set to 21°C but users manually modify it…)

In addition, comparison with other buildings of the same type may reveal anomalies not visible through a single monitoring system (e.g. similar temperatures and a similar envelope, but different consumptions).


10CONCLUSIONS

IT’S CLEAR THAT THE EXCEED DATABASE AND TOOLS CAN SUPPORT BUILDING MANAGERS, DESIGNERS, POLICY MAKERS AND OTHERS TO PULL TOGETHER MEANINGFUL DATA AND GAIN THE KNOWLEDGE NEEDED TO CREATE AN ENERGY-EFFICIENT, HEALTHY AND COMFORTABLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT.

The ExcEED platform is unique because of the elements embedded in its framework. It 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 all the following 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 through the use of 27 specifically defined KPIs, conceived and developed to highlight different behaviour and normalize the effect of the context

• Comprehensive benchmarking by using the KPIs and different combinations of data-sets

• Clustering of buildings by selected metadata

• Analysis of building occupants’ perceptions of the indoor environment through a dedicated IEQ survey


This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 723858

WWW. EXCEEDPROJECT.EU

@ExcEED_H2020

ExcEED - Knowledge sharing on buildings data

EXCEED GUIDELINES PROJECT FINDINGS AND TECHNICAL … · Roberto Lollini, EURAC Daniele Antonucci,...

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Transcript of EXCEED GUIDELINES PROJECT FINDINGS AND TECHNICAL … · Roberto Lollini, EURAC Daniele Antonucci,...