What is the detailed three-dimensional and physical character of the non-domestic building stock of the UK at the level of individual premises?
This project will create a database and 3D model of all non-domestic buildings in the country and their use of energy, with which a wide range of questions relating to policy for carbon reduction may be answered
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This project will create a database and 3D model of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales, at the level of individual premises. Energy use will be modelled in the first place. When and where individual gas and electricity meter data become available these will be incorporated. The 3D model is being built by bringing together two principal sources of data: building footprints from Ordnance survey digital maps, and commercial rating data for premises from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) of HMRC. These are being matched by their addresses. The rating data give floor areas broken down by floor levels so that, once matched, they can be used to construct 3D models of buildings. The floors are further sub-divided by the VOA into sub-activities, to which typical profiles of equipment and environmental requirements can be attached. The method has been trialled successfully for the London Borough of Camden.
A model of electricity consumption by appliances is working. This project will add further data on materials, construction and building age from the VOA, and data from other sources on building types not covered by the VOA. Other data sets such as Display Energy Certificates will be incorporated. Methods for modelling heating and cooling demand in large populations of buildings will be developed. The methods will be rolled out to the whole of England and Wales. The tool can be extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland (not covered by the VOA) if rating data is available. The result will be a non-domestic equivalent of the Housing Energy Efficiency Database (HEED) built by EST and DECC, but – unlike HEED – with a geographical and three-dimensional structure. It will be able to support, for the non-domestic stock, the kind of wide range of policy and energy epidemiology studies that HEED has allowed for the domestic stock.
Principal Investigator Philip Steadman