Building Energy Mapping and Analytics Concept Development Study (BEMA-CDS)

CanmetENERGY-Ottawa, an energy R&D division within the Energy Technology Sector of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has a mandate to lead the development of energy science and technology solutions for the environmental and economic benefit of Canadians. Investigation into the improvement of housing and buildings energy-related data, along with the potential value of mapping or spatializing energy end-use and efficiency opportunities information for stakeholder groups such as municipalities and utilities, is a research priority in the context of CanmetENERGY-Ottawa’s Canadian Energy End-use Mapping (CEE Map) project.

Over 400 Canadian municipalities have completed community energy and emissions plans for which they acquire data and conduct or procure modelling. Electric and natural gas utilities procure Conservation Potential Reviews (CPR) and establish Demand Side Management (DSM) programs to achieve energy conservation and efficiency targets in buildings. Nationally, Canadian federal government departments conduct surveys and building energy modelling to inform policy and program development, changes to equipment standards and energy performance requirements in the National Building Code.

Although building stock and energy performance data for municipal, utility and federal government policies, programs and planning processes may be required at different spatio-temporal resolutions, on a fundamental level it is essentially the same. What’s required for all of these processes is an understanding of the building stock: number of buildings, their ages, types, and floor areas and other energy-related characteristics of buildings in the stock, grouped by building archetype. Energy use is derived from different sources and methods including measured and modelled data; various statistical and aggregation techniques are applied inconsistently by different organizations to estimate current and projected end-use and efficiency opportunities.

Strategic policy, planning and program efforts of municipalities, utilities and federal government policies, programs, codes and standards are not harmonized in terms of their reliance on consistent and authoritative underlying data and assumptions on the building stock, its energy use and efficiency opportunities. This lack of data coordination results in duplication of effort, lost energy savings and lost opportunities for climate change mitigation and resilience. Access to and use of consistent, authoritative data on the building stock and its energy performance is a systemic challenge that no one organization can fix alone.

Potential to Improve the Impact of Energy Efficiency Policy and Programs through Interoperable Spatialized Data

Recent advancement in building energy modelling and simulation has led to the production of big data on housing and building energy use and efficiency opportunities in new and existing dwellings. Specifically, the CanmetENERGY-Ottawa lab through its Housing Technology Assessment Platform (HTAP) and Building Technology Assessment Platform (BTAP) is able to generate thousands of potential technology packages at various cost increments on the path to net zero energy housing and buildings for thousands of building archetypes or typologies in all Canadian weather regions. This data is developed in support of the National Building Code, energy efficiency programs and equipment standards led by NRCan’s Office of Energy Efficiency.

There is a growing recognition and consensus that housing and building energy information is required at a low level of geography. The hypothesis is that by integrating this information into an online map-based authoritative decision platform, it will provide increased value to decision makers by better enabling them to access data and information on building energy previously in the domain of building and computer scientists. While multiple models have been developed on a desktop basis, the leading edge will be putting these maps online and drawing data dynamically from multiple sources to inform decision making.

In order to guide Research and Development (R&D) in this emerging area, the CanmetENERGY-Ottawa division of NRCan requires a current and comprehensive understanding of the state of building energy mapping and analytics.