Between the Poles

Energy efficient building market to grow to $623.0 billion in 2023.

Energy performance modeling for buildings is a new field, but one that is getting a lot of interest under the impetus of government mandates and incentives.  It's so new that there is no set of standard best practices.  Energy modelers are having to make it up as they go.  But this area is growing rapidly, and as government mandates for zero-energy buildings kick in, it is expected to grow exponentially.  A Navigant Research study estimated that the energy efficient building market reached $307.3 billion in 2014 and that it will grow to $623.0 billion in 2023.

According to the 2014 scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Germany is #1 out of the 16 nations studied in the World for energy efficiency.  In Germany buildings currently account for 40 percent of power consumption and a third of CO₂ emissions. 

In September 2010 the German Government released a 40 year masterplan for revolutionizing the German energy supply that includes an aggressive plan for energy conservation focusing on reducing the energy demand from buildings.  According to the plan new insulation standards are to be introduced the government wants all buildings in Germany to be refurbished in line with new standards by 2050. It also wants to cut the national heating requirement by 20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050.  Germany is part of the EU which is very aggressive in improving the energy efficiency of buildings. 

The EU Energy Saving Ordinance mandates a 25 percent reduction in energy use for all new residential and non-residential buildings built from January 1, 2016. And as of 2021, the EU’s nearly zero energy standard will apply to all new buildings.

The EIA has just released information on building energy efficiency programs in China.  Unlike many other countries, the Chinese government has focused a lot of regulatory attention on existing buildings. The overall objective of the Chinese government is to raise the level of existing buildings to satisfy regulations governing new construction. In 2011, the government implemented regulations that mandated a 10% reduction in energy consumption per square meter for commercial buildings by the end of 2015.  It also mandated a 15% reduction for commercial buildings with more than 20,000 square meters of floor area.

Energy certification of buildings is a key policy instrument for reducing the energy consumption and improving the energy performance of new and existing buildings.  In the U.K. since 2008 public buildings over 1,000 m² must display a Display Energy Certificate (DEC).  DECs document the actual energy usage of a building and look similar to the energy labels provided on new cars and electrical appliances.  In the U.S. six cities and two states have passed laws requiring energy benchmarking of existing buildings. It is estimated that these laws will affect 4 billion ft² of floor space in major real estate markets.  In Australia commercial buildings 2000 m² and over are required by the Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Act 2010 to have a Building Energy Efficiency Certificate (BEEC).  In Jakarta a new green building code became mandatory for existing and new buildings in early 2013.  The code covers all large buildings in Jakarta including office buildings, shopping malls and apartment buildings larger than 50,000 square meters; hotels and healthcare facilities larger than 20,000 square meters; and educational facilities larger than 10,000 square meters.

The European Union's SUNSHINE program is intended as a step towards toward standards for measuring the energy performance of buildings and a way to  contribute to improving the energy efficiency of buildings.  SUNSHINE is based on open standards such as CityGML from the OGC. 

In the United States according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), buildings are responsible for 65 % of electricity consumption.  An important motivation for energy efficient buildings in many jurisdictions are aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency.   For example, the 2013 California Green Building Standards Code (Title 24) is one of the first “green” building codes.   Other motivations are customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification - LEED v4 incorporates up to 18 credits for demand response -  and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption, peak load or both.

Government mandates for zero energy buildings (ZEB) have been introduced in E.U., the U.S. and Japan.   According to Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Energy performance modeling is an essential tool for estimating the energy requirements of a new or existing building.  An energy performance analysis can determine how much energy a building will consume in a year, assess the most cost effective insulation and glazing, and assess other things that can be done as part of the building design to optimize energy usage.  An energy analysis requires data - geometry of the building, performance characteristics of materials, geolocation and orientation of the building, and so on.  Simulation applications include local environmental conditions and involve thermal modeling, daylight and airflow simulations.  Thermal modeling includes energy consumption, thermal comfort, CO₂ emissions, renewable energy integration, and electric power load. Natural lighting includes visual comfort (glare) and the reduction of energy use through natural lighting.  Airflow simulation includes external wind simulation, internal airflow simulation, clean room ventilation, and reduction in electrical load as a result of using natural ventilation.

There are many energy analysis tools available (lighting, thermal, emissions, water usage, etc) , many are very complex, and the volume of data that is required is increasing exponentially.  Many energy modelers follow a best-of-breed approach so interoperablity is a major challenge in improving productivity in energy performance analysis.

Increasingly for energy modelers the natural place to start is with a Building Information Model (BIM).  There are several reasons for this.  First of all it is what many of the energy performance analysis packages expect and it is supported by the gbXML standard.  Secondly it allows all the information required by the architect, engineers and construction contractors to be accessed in one place.  And thirdly it helps in communicating the results of the energy performance analysis to the people who need it including heating and cooling, lighting and other types of engineers, all  of whom may require the same  information but communicated in different ways.

China and Germany lead the world in building energy efficiency

According to the 2014 scorecard released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Germany is #1 out of the 16 nations studied in the World for energy efficiency.  In Germany buildings currently account for 40 percent of power consumption and a third of CO₂ emissions. 

Energy efficiency of buildings

In September 2010 the German Government released a 40 year masterplan for revolutionizing the German energy supply that includes an aggressive plan for energy conservation focusing on reducing the energy demand from buildings.  According to the plan new insulation standards are to be introduced the government wants all buildings in Germany to be refurbished in line with new standards by 2050. It also wants to cut the national heating requirement by 20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050.  Germany is part of the EU which is very aggressive in improving the energy efficiency of buildings.  The EU Energy Saving Ordinance mandates a 25 percent reduction in energy use for all new residential and non-residential buildings built from January 1, 2016. And as of 2021, the EU’s nearly zero energy standard will apply to all new buildings.

According to the ACEEE scorecard Germany is ahead of most countries in implementing energy conservation policies and measures for buildings.  (The IEA provides a listing of German energy conservation policies and measures.) But Germany came in second to China in the ACEEE assessment of its progress in improving the energy efficiency of buildings.  The ACEEE assessement focussed on several criteria for building efficiency including energy intensity in residential buildings, energy intensity in commercial buildings, residential building codes, commercial buildings codes, building labeling, appliance and equipment labeling, and building retrofit policy.

The EIA has just released information on building energy efficiency programs in China.  Unlike many other countries, the Chinese government has focused a lot of regulatory attention on existing buildings. The overall objective of the Chinese government is to raise the level of existing buildings to satisfy regulations governing new construction. In 2011, the government implemented regulations that mandated a 10% reduction in energy consumption per square meter for commercial buildings by the end of 2015.  It also mandated a 15% reduction for commercial buildings with more than 20,000 square meters of floor area.

The Green Building Action Plan of 2013 mandates that more than 400 million square feet in residential homes in the northern heating zone must be refurbished to meet new construction standards by the end of 2015. (According to the World Bank 46% of residential floor area is in “severe cold” or “cold” regions.) In addition all commercial buildings in the same zone must be renovated to meet the standards by 2020.

Energy labeling

In 2006 China started a green building labeling initiative called Three-Star Rating Building System.  This system required buildings to be assigned a rating of one to three stars using several criteria.  These include land usage, energy and water consumption, material efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and operational management. The Three-Star Rating Building System departs from the LEED standard in assigning categories based not only on a building's design but also on the building's performance over one year of operation.

Appliance and equipment labeling

China began an energy efficiency labeling program in 1998 with a voluntary energy efficiency labeling program. Then in 2005, a mandatory energy information label was introduced that assigned appliances to categories based on their energy efficiency.  This program is similar to the European Union categorical energy label. 

Green building codes

In 1986 China issued the first building energy code in 1986 for residential buildings in the northern heating zone. These regulations mandated a 30% reduction in space heating energy consumption compared with 1980 reference buildings. For each of China's four climate zones (severe cold or cold climate, hot summer/cold winter, and hot summer/warm winter), there are three energy codes for residential buildings.   There is one code for commercial buildings. Regulations are mandatory except in rural area where residential energy codes are voluntary.

Even with these regulations, from 1998 to 2012 energy consumption of buildings in China grew by about 7.7% per year.  This is ascribed to rapid economic development and the rapid rise in personal incomes in China during this period allowing people to acquire and use more appliances.  In addition China's buildings are inefficient compared to developed countries.  It is estimated that buildings in China use 2-3x more energy per square meter for heating than buildings in comparable temperature zones in Europe or the US.  Furthermore thermal comfort is significantly lower in China.

How Vancouver became the world's fourth greenest city

According to the annual ranking by the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) Vancouver is the world's fourth greenest city.  The most recent GGEI analysis covers 60 countries and 70 cities. It tracks how investors rank the appeal of cities and countries as markets for green investment and it provides a global measure of performance in key efficiency sectors, including buildings, transport, tourism and energy.  It also integrates environment & natural capital measuring perceptions and performance in environmental areas like air quality, water, forests and agriculture.  According to the GGEI the top three greenest cities are Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Stockholm.  The countries corresponding to these cities (Denmark, Netherlands, and Sweden) also rank high, in the top 5 country rankings.  Canada is 12th. The Nordic cities have achieved their high standing with the help of their respective national governments, whereas Vancouver has achieved its high green ranking on its own with little help from the federal government.

How did Vancouver do this ?

I have blogged on several occasions about geospatial developments at the City of Vancouver.  Vanmap, which is the City's geospatial portal, was an early development that has supported a number of the City's green initiatives.  Vancouver was one of the first cities that made its geospatial and other data open and free.

Yesterday at Ottawa's City Hall,  Andrea Reimer, Vancouver's Deputy Mayor, described in a fascinating presentation how Vancouver achieved its high GGEI ranking and its plans to rise even higher to become the world's greenest city by 2020.  In addition the City has recently committed to running 100% on renewable energy by 2035. This means only green energy sources for electricity, heating and cooling and transportation.

This all started about a decade ago, when a public consultation about greening the city attracted an incredible 2300 people.  The enthusiastic response was unexpected.  It cost participants ten dollars and the organizers were expecting something on the order of a few hundred people.  It turned out that they had to change the venue twice to accommodate everyone.  The mega response clearly showed a tremendous interest in green by Vancouver's citizens.  From this beginning Vancouver's greenest city initiative has continued to be a grass roots movement supported by the City government.

The City started off with some quick start projects which had high visibility and were inexpensive.  These included separated bicycle lanes, provision for organic waste (food scraps), a deconstruction bylaw, drinking water stations, community gardens, urban commercial farms, green buildings, city power utility that generated electricity by burning sewage and waste, commercial car sharing, and an urban forest initiative. 

The City developed the Greenest City Action Plan (GCAP) which focussed on 10 goal areas addressing three overarching areas of focus; zero carbon, zero waste and healthy ecosystems. The 10 goal areas were arrived at by a process of public consultation.

The Greenest City Action Plan includes commitments to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, both from City operations and the community; generate 100 per cent of electricity from renewable resources; and implement the greenest building codes in North America. This commitment has helped stimulated the local green economy.  5% of all jobs in Vancouver are green and Vancouver is among the top 10 green technology clusters.  World-leading companies such as Westport Inovations (advanced natural gas engine-maker), General Fusion (nuclear fusion), Ballard Power Systems (hydrogen fuel cells) and Saltworks Technologies (waste water remediation) are based in Vancouver.  In Vancouver's case economic development and greening the city have gone hand in hand.

The results of the greenest city initiative to date are impressive; for example, 8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, 18% reduction in waste going to landfills or incinerators, 18% reduction in water use per capita, 19% increase in jobs in the green sector, 30% increase in food assets, and 10% increase in trips by bicycle, on foot or using public transit.

Vancouver's greenest city initiative is an amazing story with concrete measurable achievements.  As David Chernushenko, Ottawa City councilman,  said in his comments after Andrea's presentation, there is no reason from a technology perspective that other cities such as Ottawa cannot follow in Vancouver's footsteps  with their own solutions reflecting their unique environment.  But the key ingredient that enabled Vancouver's green revolution is broad public participation, which Vancouver had right from the beginning.

Powering up the smart grid with geospatial technology

The electricity industry is undergoing a transformation. With utilities embracing geospatial technology and turning into data driven enterprises in the Smart Grid scenario, the sector is staring at an innovative future.

The National Academy of Engineering identifies the electric power grid as the first of 20 major engineering achievements that has had the greatest impact on the quality of life in the 20th Century. Modern society has reached a point where virtually every crucial economic and social function depends on the secure, reliable operation of electric power infrastructure.  But because it has become so crucial for modern life, it faces major challenges.
   
The major drivers for the fundamental change underway in the electric power industry are increasing demand, universal access, decarbonizing electric power, reducing revenue losses, and grid reliability and resilience.  Some of the  technologies that are contributing to this transformation are intelligent devices integrated with a communications network, distributed renewable power generation especially wind and solar PV, net zero energy buildings, microgrids, and the new remote sensing technologies of subsurface utility engineering.  

For an industry not known historically for rapid change, many utilities are in the midst of transforming themselves into data driven enterprises. Recently IDC published its future predictions for the development of the electric power industry over the period 2015-2018.  For many in the industry these are quite startling and clearly reflect an industry that is rapidly evolving.

The technology roadmap for the smart grid involves the deployment of increasing numbers of intelligent electronic devices for sensing and for control.  The challenge is federating the data from all of these devices, extracting information from it, and dispatching the information to the right control devices. 
 
With the changes that the electric power industry is undergoing now, analysts see geospatial technology poised to become a foundation technology for the smart grid.  The role of utility GIS is expected to touch every aspect of a utilities business, affecting customers, operations and management because geospatial is the logical technology that can provide  the basis for integrating data from intelligent electronic devices such as smart meters and the  information silos associated with proprietary applications.

You can read more about smart grid and relevance of geospatial data and technology, real-time big spatial data, standards for interoperability, the importance of data quality, open source geospatial technology,  spatial analytics and other aspects of the role of geospatial technology in the smart grid in Geospatial World.

Building optimization market expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2024

In November, 2012 Navigant Research released a report on building optimization and commissioning services in which it estimated that the global market for these services amounted to $2.2 billion annually in 2012.  Navigant predicted that the market would double to $4.4 billion by 2020.

I have blogged several times about the growing importance of energy performance modeling based on BIM for new buildings or from scan to BIM models for existing buildings.  Navigant Research has just released a new report, Building Optimization and Commissioning Services, that updates the previous estimates and suggests that the market for these services (which include energy performance analysis) is increasing more rapidly than the initial report from Navigant suggested.

Building commissioning services

Buildings are becoming more complicated to build, maintain and operate.  Navigant points out that the actual performance of the building is often poorer than was intended during design.  Building optimization and commissioning services, which were developed in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s as a quality assurance measure for new buildings, are now being used as a tool to ensure operational and energy efficiency. According to Navigant commissioning has grown rapidly driven by the wide spread adoption of green building certification programs over the past decade as well as by government regulations and incentives. In addition owners are beginning to realize that "green building" practices can actually generate substantial savings during the operations and maintenance phase of a building.

The Navigant report focuses on three types of commissioning services;

• Initial commissioning - This happens as part of handover over a new building and focuses on the building's actual performance compared to what was intended in the design and constrcution phases.
• Retrocommissioning- This applies to existing buildings.  It targets optimization of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, and other mechanical or electrical systems to identify areas of investment to improve the building's performance.
• Monitoring-based commissioning - This is a process that was developed by the Energy Systems Laboratory at Texas A&M University. It tracks the actual performance of an existing building to ensure that performance goals are being me and to identify new areas for investment to improve building performance.

Market drivers

The market driver for these building optimization and commissioning services is the fact that in many parts of the world 40% of energy is consumed by buildings.  In the U.S. 70 % of electric power demand is due to buildings.  Currently the primary motivation for energy performance modeling are aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency, for example, the 2013 California Green Building Standards Code (Title 24).   Other motivations are customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification programs and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption and peak load.

Measures aimed at improving the efficiency of buildings have been introduced in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. A major area of focus in the EU is “nearly zero energy” buildings.  For new buildings, the European Commission has mandated 2020/2021 as the deadline when all new buildings will have to be designed to be “nearly zero energy”.  For public buildings the deadline is even sooner, by 2018/2019.   The Government of Japan put forward its "zero emissions buildings" target in April, 2009. The announced objective mandates that all new public buildings will be “zero emissions” by 2030. The U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) requires that by 2030 all new Federal facilities must be "zero net energy" (ZNE) buildings.  In 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted aggressive targets for ZNE - all new residential construction in California to be zero net energy by 2020, all new commercial construction in California to be zero net energy by 2030, and 50% of existing commercial buildings will be retrofit to ZNE by 2030. According to a report from Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Technology drivers

Navigant says that increased use of monitoring-based commissioning, integration into building information
modeling (BIM), and cloud-based organization and distribution of commissioning documents have the potential to improve both the commissioning process and building efficiency. But according to Navigant the industry has not yet made adoption of these technologies a priority.  In contrast the lower costs of data loggers and control equipment has provided the most important technological impact on the market.

Market forecast

Navigant estimates that global revenue in 2014 amounted to about $2.7 billion, of which the majority of the revenue went to initial commissioning.  It projects that the market will grow to about $4.7 billion in 2020 (compared to an estimate of $4.4 billion in the earlier Navigant report), and about $6.6 billion in 2024.  It expects that revenue for building optimization and commissioning services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.1% from 2014 to 2024.
 
Navigant predicts that retrocommissioning presents a large market potential over the forecast period because existing buildings are generally not very efficient and because the stock of existing buildings is so much larger than the new buildings that will be built in the next decade.  In addition there are new regulatory requirements.  Navigant mentions New York’s Local Law 87 and California’s CALGreen.

Currently monitoring-based commissioning is a smalll, niche market, because there are "few building owners with enough knowledge to demand it." Navigant expects that technological improvements in building automation systems and building energy management systems will drive more demand for this type of performance monitoring and improvement so that by 2024 revenue will exceed $1 billion.

First online course for BIM-integrated energy modeling for buildings

Energy performance modeling for buildings is a new field, but one that is getting a lot of interest under the impetus of government mandates and incentives.  It's so new that there is no set of standard best practices.  Energy modelers are having to make it up as they go.   But this is beginning to change.  Trailloop has just released an online course for BIM-Integrated Energy Modeling for buildings.  The course was created by Jean Carriere who is one of the early pioneers in applied energy performance modeling.  Jean has been working commercially in this very new field for about 5 years.  Jean also teaches BIM modeling at a local community college.

In the United States according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), buildings are responsible for 65 % of electricity consumption.  An important motivation for energy efficient buildings in many jurisdictions are aggressive building codes that push energy efficiency.   For example, the 2013 California Green Building Standards Code (Title 24) is one of the first “green” building codes.   Other motivations are customer driven certification such as LEED and other "green" certification - LEED v4 incorporates up to 18 credits for demand response -  and financial incentives from local governments and power utilities to reduce energy consumption, peak load or both. Government mandates for zero energy buildings (ZEB) have been introduced in E.U., the U.S. and Japan.   According to Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Energy performance modeling is an essential tool for estimating the energy requirements of a new or existing building.  An energy performance analysis allows you to determine how much energy your building will consume in a year, assess the most cost effective insulation and glazing, and assess other things that you can do as part of the building design to optimize energy usage.  An energy analysis requires a lot of data - geometry of the building, performance characteristics of materials, geolocation and orientation of the building, and so on.  Simulation applications allow you to include local environmental conditions and conduct thermal modeling, daylight and airflow simulations.  Thermal modeling includes energy consumption, thermal comfort, CO₂ emissions, renewable energy integration, and electric power load. Natural lighting includes visual comfort (glare) and the reduction of energy use through natural lighting.  Airflow simulation includes external wind simulation, internal airflow simulation, clean room ventilation, and reduction in electrical load as a result of using natural ventilation.

There are many energy analysis tools available (lighting, thermal, emissions, water usage, etc) , many are very complex, and the volume of data that are required is increasing exponentially.  Many energy modelers follow a best-of-breed approach so interoperablity is a major challenge in improving productivity in energy performance analysis.

Increasingly for energy modelers the natural place to start is with a Building Information Model (BIM).  There are several reasons for this.  First of all it is what many of the energy performance analysis packages expect and it is supported by the gbXML standard.  Secondly it allows all the information required by the architect, engineers and construction contractors to be accessed in one place.  And thirdly it helps in communicating the results of the energy performance analysis to the people who need it including heating and cooling, lighting and other types of engineers, all  of whom may require the same  information but communicated in different ways.

In most projects the energy modeler is brought in after the building has been designed.  If the building was designed using BIM,  the starting point is the architect's BIM model and an associated database containing information about elements of the building.  Otherwise it is necessary to start with paper drawings and generate the BIM model from scratch.  In addition the geolocation and orientation of the building and local environmental conditions are required.  The first thing the energy modeler does is to create a parallel BIM model, which is a simplified model derived from the architect's BIM model that contains the key elements that are required for the energy analysis such as simplified walls and floors, room bounding elements, complete volumes, and window frames and curtain walls.  The simplified model is exported as a gbXML file and imported into an energy analysis package.   The energy performance application is used to run a simulation or several simulations if the energy modeler is asked to consider alternative designs.  Finally, a visualization showing energy consumption using the BIM model is used to communicate the results of the analyses.

The Trailloop course covers the energy performance modeling workflow in detail including creating the BIM model, exporting it as a gbXML file,  importing the gbXML file into an energy performance package which performs the analysis, and then exporting the results back to the BIM model.  In the Trailloop course industry standard tools are used: Revit for BIM modeling (a free version is available for students) and IES VE for building energy modeling (a special low price is available for students).

In his commercial practice, Jean has focused on optimizing the energy modeling workflow so that starting from paper architectural drawings, he can develop the BIM model, compile energy performance parameters, generate a gbXML file, and conduct a complete energy analysis (daylighting, thermal analysis, etc) for the proposed building in as little as two weeks, and then provide weekly performance feedback from design changes​.

Course description

BIM-Integrated Energy Modeling

The BIM-Integrated Energy Modeling Online Course is the most competitive and time-efficient workflow because it avoids rework through integration during the design process, providing an early feedback of LEED credits.

Students learn about the foundations of Integrated Modeling for a seamless integration into the Virtual Environment’s energy modeling application by using a Revit model, and then gain practical experience in solving complex design integration problems. Model elements are precisely placed using a standard set of modeling rules to ensure a predictable quality. Input data is associated with spaces and zone for thermal template data integration through schedules. Techniques are given to troubleshoot and mitigate all errors from the building geometry in order to apply an accurate building envelope.

Once the building geometry is integrated, students learn how to perform early-stage energy simulations to generate preliminary results on energy performance for various systems. They will be able to edit the building geometry and add new forms to the energy model in order measure the impacts of the added building elements. After producing a building loads report, techniques are given to reduce the load to right-size mechanical equipment.

Learning objectives

1. Construct building geometries in Revit for a seamless integration into IES VE for energy modeling.
2. Update the building geometry from design changes and re-integrate it back into the energy model.
3. Select appropriate energy modeling input data for building constructions, space types and HVAC systems.
4. Describe the differences observed between a baseline run and an energy efficient case for peak heating and cooling load reductions.
5. Display the energy/load difference between the baseline run and the energy efficient case using charts, graphics and tabular data.

Smart power spatial power

For the first time in a hundred years, the electric power utility industry is undergoing a momentous change. Distributed renewable power generation, especially solar photovoltaics (PV), is introducing competition into an industry that has been managed as regulated monopolies. Consumers with solar PV panels on their roofs (and in not-too-distant future with Tesla batteries in the basement) and companies like Solar City (co-founded by Tesla co-founder Elon Musk) are fundamentally changing the traditional utility business model. A recent report from the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) report refers to disruptive challenges that threaten to force electric power utilities to change or adapt the business model that has been in place since the first half of the 20th century.

As a result, every aspect of the the electric power industry is changing. One of these changes involves the role that geospatial data and technology play in the electricity industry. In the past, geospatial has been a tactical tool — it was (and still is) used in a variety of applications — in outage management, asset management, mobile work- force management, energy density modelling, vegetation management, demand modelling, transmission line siting, substation siting and design, energy performance modelling of buildings, disaster management, and mapping renewable resources, to name just a few. However, with the changes that the industry is undergoing now, geospatial is poised to become a foundation technology for the smart grid.

The Energy Issue of Geospatial World Magazine explores the impact that this momentous change is having on the application of geospatial technology in the electric power utility sector.  Below I'm providing an overview of the material relating to electric power you'll find in this issue.

GIS has been widely used by utilities for years for automated mapping/facilities management, back office records management, asset management, transmission line siting, and more recently for design and construction, energy conservation, vegetation management, mobile workforce management (MWFM), and outage management (OMS). Now, utilities are integrating GIS with automated meter infrastructure (AMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Intelligent design has crossed over from the office to the field in utilities, also enabled by the capabilities of GIS, says Smith. Geospatial-related analytics (spatial analytics) is seen as one of the key aspects of success for electric utility operations in the smart grid era. Looking for patterns and correlations between different land, weather, terrain, assets, and other types of geodata will be increasingly important for utilities. Power-related analytics with geospatial components include network fault tracing, load flow analysis, Volt/VAR analysis, real-time disaster situational awareness, condition-based maintenance, and vegetation management. The smart grid is all about situation awareness and effective anticipation of and response to events that might disrupt the performance of the power grid. Since spatial data underlies everything an electric utility does, GIS is the only foundational view that can potentially link every operational activity of an electric utility, including design and construction, asset management, workforce management, and outage management as well as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distribution management systems (DMSs), renewables, and strategy planning.

Peter Batty reports on the major growth in geospatially-enabled Web and mobile applications with a special focus on the open source geospatial community and the significant impact of these technologies in the utility sector. "In general, there are a lot of geospatial open source software components available now that have the capabilities and robustness to be used in serious enterprise applications."  John McDonald, Chairman of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel has been a firm believer for a long time that geospatial information is part of the foundational platform for smart grid.  SGIP has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Open Geospatial Consortium with the goal of incorporating more geospatial standards into SGIP standards.  Cindi Smith of Bentley goes even further and argues that  “geospatial technology is already a foundational component of electric power utilities’ IT/OT systems.  Smart grid simply brings more focus to the role it can play by virtue of the visibility of smart grid projects and processes in a utility and their need to exploit the vast amounts of data produced by the smart grid." Loek Bakker & Jan van GelderIt of Alliander, a Dutch utility company, describe how essential it has been for Alliander to integrate GIS, ERP and SCADA systems for a correct picture of its assets.  As electric utilities evolve into increasingly data-driven organisations, Jeffrey Pires and G. Ben Binger describe how GIS is fast emerging as the backbone for data management platforms. 

Cities are beginning to develop 3D models of underground infrastructure motivated by new underground remote-sensing technologies and by ROIs of up to of US$21.00 saved for every US$1.00 spent on improving the quality level of subsurface utility information.  Steve Dibenedetto, Senior Geoscientist and Technology Manager, Underground Imaging Technologies (UIT), part of Caterpillar describes new remote-sensing technology for detecting and geolocating in 3D underground utility infrastructure such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electromagnetic Induction (EMI). 

The Indian on-going Restructured – Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Program (R-APDRP) is one of the largest IT initiatives by electric utilities anywhere in the world — in one integrated project, all state-owned distribution utilities in India are building IT infrastructure, IT applications and automation systems.  The programme set out to create baseline data in the form of consumer indexing, GIS mapping and asset mapping. Reji Pillai & C. Amritha assess how GIS can be applied in this context.  

Integrating  geospatial and BIM is a key enabler for energy performance modeling which is a fundamental instrument for reducing the energy consumption and improving the energy performance of new and existing buildings. According to a report from Navigant Research, global zero energy buildings revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Wolfgang Eyrich of Entegra shares how Entegra’s primtech product, which is designed to help substation designers deliver designs based on integrated product modelling, provides a geographical context to substation designing. 

Matt Zimmerman of Schneider Electric highlights one of Schneider Electric's key techologies "graphic work design" which is integrated geospatial and engineering design (CAD or BIM).  Schneider Electric's geospatial division focuses on developing integrated, location-aware enterprise solutions such as integrated outage management (OMS), customer information system (CIS), GIS, and external weather reporting and forecasting service to help plan crew deployment during a storm.  Matt foresees that location-aware predictive analytics for electric networks is going to be one of the major development areas for utilities in the future.  Brad Williams of Oracle points out that spatial analytics is becoming a key technology for electric utilities because everything a utility does - customers, assets, and operations - involves location. 

One of the biggest challenges that utilities are experiencing is increasing volumes of structured and unstructured data (big data) that is overwhelming traditional enterprise systems.  The structured data comes from smart meters and intelligent electronic devices, and the unstructured data from social networks including Twitter, Google, Facebook and other social applications.  Consumerization of geospatial technology (we are all GPS-enabled sensors) will enable crowd-sourcing new sources of information about electric power networks most of which involves location (big spatial data).

Zero net energy building revenue projected to grow to $1.4 trillion by 2035

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that by 2035 the world's energy demand will increase by a third, driven primarily by emerging economies, China, India and the Middle East.  According to the most likely scenario, China is the primary driver for increased demand through 2020, when India becomes the primary driver.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Two-thirds of global of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions come from the energy sector.   The IEA projects that energy-related CO₂ emissions will increase by 20% by 2035.

Energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is getting a lot of attention these days.  Measures aimed at improving the efficiency of buildings have been introduced in Europe, the U.S. and Japan .   But the IEA still projects that  two-thirds of the economic potential of energy efficiency will remain untapped.  Government action is required to break down barriers to investment in energy efficiency including phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies, which the IEA estimates globally to have reached $544 billion in 2012.

Zero energy buildings

Zero energy buildings (ZEB) are loosely defined as buildings that generate as much energy as they consume.  But there is as yet no single standards body defining what a ZEB is.  Different countries and even within the same country different bodies define zero energy buildings in different ways.

The IEA has announced the Building Energy Efficiency Policies (BEEP) database.  The BEEP database collects information on buildings energy codes including minimum energy performance requirements that focus on achieving zero energy buildings, buildings energy labels which increase awareness about energy consumption of buildings, and incentives schemes for capacity building, technical assistance and raising awareness.  The database includes information from all IEA member countries as well as China, India, Tunisia, South Africa and Russia.

According to a new report from Navigant Research, global ZEB revenue is expected to grow from $629.3 million in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Nearly zero energy buildings in the E.U.

The European Union (EU) has taken a leading role in improving the energy efficiency of buildings.  The EU has mandatory carbon emission reduction standards, referred to as the 20-20-20 standard, which among other things requires the EU to improve energy efficiency by 20% by 2020.  Another important objective is reducing its dependence on imported energy, which currently accounts for half of EU energy usage.  In 2002 the European Commission promulgated the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) which requires all EU member states to upgrade their building regulations and to introduce energy certification schemes for buildings.  About a year ago the European Commission (EC) proposed a new Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) , also known as the EPBD recast, which imposes a legal obligation for all member states to establish energy saving schemes, with the public sector leading by example.

Energy efficiency is especially critical for Germany which not only needs to comply with the 20-20-20 standard, but also to find energy sources to replace its (non-emitting) nuclear power plants that are scheduled to be closed by 2022.  In Germany buildings currently account for 40 percent of power consumption and a third of CO2 emissions. The German 40 year master plan calls for aggressive energy efficiency policies including new insulation standards and for all buildings in Germany to be refurbished in line with the new insulation standards by 2050, reducing energy requirements for heating by 20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, and providing tax relief on energy taxes to companies contributing to energy savings.

A major area of focus in the EU is “nearly zero energy” buildings.  A nearly zero energy building on average over a year generates as much energy from renewable energy sources as it consumes.  For new buildings, the EPBD recast fixes 2020/2021 as the deadline for all new buildings to be designed to be nearly zero energy.  For public buildings the deadline is even sooner, by 2018/2019.

Zero emissions buildings in Japan

Japan‘s announced mid-term emission reduction target is to cut Japan's GHG emissions by 25% by 2020 compared with 1990, subject to international negotiations.  But Japan has said that it plans to revise this target in light of the Fukushima accident and presumably in light of the recent decison to shut down its nuclear power plants by 2040.  According to an analysis by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the largest reduction will need to be realized in commercial sector, by about 27%. Residential/commercial-sector accounts for 30% or more of final energy consumption and has increased remarkably compared to the industrial and transportation sectors.  Energy saving measures for commercial buildings are urgently required, since the commercial sector including office buildings consumes more than half of total energy consumption in the residential/commercial sector. Moreover its growth has been more striking than that of the residential sector.

The Government of Japan put forward its "zero emissions buildings" target in April, 2009.  It defines a zero emissions building (ZEB) as one that has net zero CO2 emissions on an annual basis through energy efficiency and renewable energy generation on-site.  The announced objective ia that all new public buildings will be zero emissions by 2030.

Zero net energy buildings in the U.S.

The U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) requires that by 2030 all new Federal facilities must be "zero net energy" (ZNE) buildings.  On October 19, 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted aggressive targets for ZNE

• All new residential construction in California will be zero net energy by 2020
• All new commercial construction in California will be zero net energy by 2030
• 50% of existing commercial buildings will be retrofit to ZNE by 2030.

But mandating efficiency guidelines and regulations for commercial buildings by the Federal government has not made much progress.  In March of this year with bipartisan support the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2014 (HR 2126).  The bill includes several energy efficiency provisions to encourage commercial building tenants to save energy and to  encourage benchmarking and public disclosure of energy use in commercial buildings.  (I've blogged about six U.S. cities that have already mandated energy benchmarking for certain types of buildings.) Unfortunately the Senate's Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill, which includes these provisions among other efficiency measures, failed in the Senate.

According to the New Buildings Institute (NBI) in a report “2014 Getting to Zero Status Update,” there are 213 commercial buildings with an annual footprint of zero operational energy in the U.S. and Canada.  In this study ZNE includes ZNE Verified buildings, ZNE Emerging buildings and ZNE Districts.  ZNE Verified buildings (or districts) have been documented to have met, over the course of a year, all net energy use through onsite renewables. The energy use of all fuels (electric, natural gas, steam, etc.) is counted and offset by production from onsite renewables.  Within this group of 213 buildings with ultra-low net energy usage are 32 buildings in the U.S. and Canada that the NBI has verified to  have achieved zero net energy performance over a year.  

LEED Certification

LEED has proven to be a baseline for net-zero energy strategies.  Of the 32 buildings that the NBI has certified as zero net energy, 15 are LEED Gold- or Platinum-certified buildings.

LEED is a system guiding the design, construction, operations and maintenance of green buildings. Worldwide there are more than 59,000 commercial and institutional projects participating in representing 967 million gross square meters (GSM) of construction space.  The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has released the ranking of the top 10 countries for LEED outside of the U.S. based on cumulative gross square meters of space certified to LEED in each nation as of April 2014.  Canada, China, and India each have more than 10 miilion gross square meters of  LEED-certified space.

Rank	Nation	GSM of LEED-certified space (millions)	Total GSM of LEED-certified and -registered space (millions)	Total number of LEED-certified and -registered projects
1	Canada	17.74	58.66	4,068
2	China	14.30	96.22	1,638
3	India	11.64	66.22	1,657
4	South Korea	3.84	16.61	242
5	Taiwan	2.98	6.97	114
6	Germany	2.90	7.32	365
7	Brazil	2.85	23.24	829
8	Singapore	2.16	3.86	91
9	United Arab Emirates	1.82	47.16	850
10	Finland	1.45	3.56	148

Open standards-based foundation for integrating BIM, geospatial and smart meters for urban energy performance optimization

The European Union has set itself aggressive goals to reduce GHG emissions by 20%, increase renewables share of energy generation to 20%, and to reduce energy consumption by 20% by 2020.  The EU seems to be on track for the first two goals, but the third remains a challenge.  In 2020, the European consumption of energy is projected to be 25 trillion kWh.  By 2040 it is expected to rise to 28 trillion kWh.  In terms of primary energy consumption, buildings represent around 40%.  In 2009, residential buildings consumed 68% of the total final energy use in buildings.  Energy in households is mainly consumed by heating (70%), cooling, hot water, cooking and appliances. Gas is the most common fuel used in buildings.

 

I have blogged about the European SUNSHINE project before.  The SUNSHINE (Smart Urban Services for Higher Energy Efficiency) project is focused on energy efficiency for buildings in an urban environment.  It is a European Commission (EC) funded project that started about a year ago and is intended to continue for 36 months.

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Energy certification of buildings is a key policy instrument for reducing the energy consumption and improving the energy performance of new and existing buildings. It is expected to help increase demand for high performance buildings by improving the energy performance of the building stock in urban centers. SUNSHINE is intended as a step towards toward such a policy and a way to  contribute to improving the energy efficiency of buildings.  SUNSHINE is intended to be accessible to Web and mobile platforms. An interesting aspect of the project is is the development of an extended CityGML model for representing urban structures for energy performance modeling.

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Three use cases are being considered.

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1 Assessment of energy performance

The goal is to supports the automatic large-scale assessment of building energy performance based on publicly available data. The building energy performance models will be used for energy.density mapping ("ECOMaps") .  It is intended that an ADE extension to CityGML for 3D building energy modeling will be developed.

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2 Heating and cooling forecast and alerts

This focuses on existing buildings that have been selected for energy performance improvement.  It relies on localized weather forecasts and other information to forecast heating/cooling requirements to optimize energy performance..

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3 Optimization of power consumption by public lighting

The idea is to control illumination so that areas are only illuminated when people are present and the level of natural lighting requires it.

 

SUNSHINE is based on customizing and integrating other EC-funded smart city applications including

• Smart urban services based on open standards to support energy efficiency of buildings
• Open data hub for data distribution
• eEnvironmental services for advanced applications within INSPIRE
• 3D CityGML models for solar energy potential assessment and noise mapping & simulation

SUNSHINE will be piloted at nine sites across five countries that include 20 public buildings in Ferrara, 60 technical buildings in Trentino, and public illumination systems in several Italian cities.

 

At Geospatial World Forum 2014 in Geneva this year as part of the GeoEnergy track, Piergiorgio Cipriano, GI/SDI Project Manager at Sinergis, Italy discussed integrating energy usage data from smart meters with city models using the CityGML standard with the goal of improving the energy performance of buildings on an urban scale.

Location is essential for linking information from different providers and sources.  The “ecomap” represents the “energy need” at building level.  For this simple map, it is necessary to integrate at the very least the following data in order to predict building energy performance with sufficient precision:

• Building footprints
• Building height (or number of floors)
• Building use(s)
• Building age and corresponding building envelope stereotypes
• Stereotypes for heating/hot-water/ventilation systems

Building modeling for urban energy performance modeling

The fundamental concept is to exploit existing standards as much as possible to avoid reinventing the wheel.  Two relevant standards for the energy performance analysis of buildings are the INSPIRE data specification for the spatial data theme Buildings (INSPIRE-BU) and  Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) CityGML with an Application Domain Extension (ADE) for the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPB).

Convergence of BIM and CityGML

CityGML has strongly influenced the development of the INSPIRE BU model, both for 2D and for 3D profiles.  The concept of a base model defining semantic objects, attributes and relations which are required by most applications has been adopted by INSPIRE BU (as core profiles).  The concept of External Reference to link to more domain-specific information systems or to ensure consistency between 2D and 3D representations of buildings has also been reused in INSPIRE BU.  The design pattern of Building – BuildingPart aggregation is also included in the INSPIRE applications schemas. Many attributes (e.g. RoofType, YearOfConstruction) have been included in INSPIRE BU profiles.
 
Many use cases that were considered for INSPIRE BU require a three-dimensional representation of buildings such as a building information model (BIM). Examples are noise emission simulation and mapping, solar radiation computation or the design of an infrastructure project. To allow for that, the building representation in Level of Detail (LoD1 - LoD4) of CityGML has been added to the INSPIRE BU model as a core 3D profile.  The whole content of LoD1 - LoD4 including  features attached to buildings such as boundaries, openings, rooms are the base of the extended 3D profile.

For large scale energy performance at the urban level,  detailed interior elements of each building are not required.  It is possible to work at a simple Level of Detail 3 (LOD3) and include elements like roofs, envelope walls, and windows.  This can also be used to make a comparison with other data sources such as aerial thermal images.

Energy usage data exchange

Green Button implements the common-sense idea that electricity customers should be able to securely download their own easy-to-understand energy usage captured by their smart meter.  Not only does it provide the retail customer with access to their usage data , it also provides the ability to authorize a third party service provider to access his or her energy usage data directly.  This architecture presents a consistent mechanism for authorized exchange of energy usage information.

To integrate electric power usage information from smart meters into SUNSHINE, the GreenButton specification defined by the NAESD (North American Energy Standards Board) was identified as the preferred implementation option for the meter data exchange protocol to be used in Sunshine.  IEC 61968-9 was judged to be much more complicated and less supported in terms of practical examples and software tools.

Open, standards-based foundation for urban energy performance analysis

Together INSPIRE BU, CityGML with the energy performance ADE, and the Green Button specification for energy usage data provide an open, standards-based foundation for energy performance analysis for urban environments.

Top 3 countries for LEED outside of the U.S. are Canada, China and India

LEED is a system guiding the design, construction, operations and maintenance of green buildings. Worldwide there are more than 59,000 commercial and institutional projects participating in LEED, representing 967 million gross square meters (GSM) of construction space.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has released its list of the top 10 countries for LEED® outside of the United States.  The ranking of the top 10 countries for LEED outside of the U.S. is based on cumulative gross square meters of space certified to LEED in each nation as of April 2014.  Canada, China, and India each have more than 10 miilion gross square meters of  LEED-certified space.

Rank Nation GSM of LEED-certified space (millions) Total GSM of LEED-certified and -registered space (millions) Total number of LEED-certified and -registered projects 1 Canada 17.74 58.66 4,068 2 China 14.30 96.22 1,638 3 India 11.64 66.22 1,657 4 South Korea 3.84 16.61 242 5 Taiwan 2.98 6.97 114 6 Germany 2.90 7.32 365 7 Brazil 2.85 23.24 829 8 Singapore 2.16 3.86 91 9 United Arab Emirates 1.82 47.16 850 10 Finland 1.45 3.56 148