Subtask 1: Applications and their requirements

IEA EBC Annex 71 carried out a significant review of stakeholder issues, and how they might engage with the HTC measurement process. This highlighted many issues around engagement, understanding and usage of the HTC. This sub task will engage with industry and stakeholders to propose use cases, understand the requirement of methods for different applications and ensure the work remains targeted at achieving impact in the sector. The main content of this sub task is as follows:

1. Developing taxonomy of terms, a full glossary of terms and clear definition of terms will be provided as a priority, this is a crucial task, as this will provide the structure and background to many measurement protocols and data analysis tasks developed by this annex.
2. Stakeholder groups will be convened and our work will be presented to develop feedback and improvements, these will be documented.
3. Guiding WP2, WP3 and WP4 with different applications and advising on stakeholder requirements and their technical and non-technical requirements e.g. accuracy and cost.
4. Providing pathways to impact for the work of the annex, including conferences, presentations to external groups, policy makers etc, we will also disseminate open data sources for researchers and innovators. This will be delivered in partnership with DYNASTEE (https://dynastee.info).

Subtask 2: HTC estimation methods

IEA EBC Annex 71 developed HTC estimation methods suitable for use in typical homes and during the heating season. These methods require further development to best meet the needs of different applications, such as improving their accuracy, repeatability, and robustness; minimising the time required; and minimising disruption to occupants and cost. This will be achieved in ST2 through an iterative approach and feedback from the rigorous evaluation in ST3. The applicability of the methods will be extended beyond the heating season and to flats and high performing buildings. There is some pioneering work on the use of in-situ building energy performance measurement techniques in cooling dominated climates and this application will be integrated into ST2. ST2 will interact with ST1 by advising on the art of the possible, and with ST5 in specifying the data requirements. Best practice methods for data collection and storage, will be developed and disseminated. Data will be shared with ST2 and ST4 for the development of methods. Data will be reserved for use by ST3 for validating and verifying the methods.

Subtask 3: Verification and validation

This sub-task will focus on how methods of building performance measurement may be compared and assessed. It will include evaluation of the performance of methods for both the measurement of building energy performance and performance diagnostics. It will aim to deliver a shared understanding of the most appropriate methods to verify and validate building energy performance measurements, and of how this should be
reported. The key tasks are:

1. Developing a shared framework for uncertainty analysis and reporting performance evaluation results. Engagement with the work of WP1 will both ensure its utility and inform those applying such methods.
2. Evaluating methods from WP2 and WP4 using data from WP5 using statistical, physical and qualitative methods during both open and blind project phases to firstly support method development and then assess it robustly.
3. Disseminate evaluation and error analysis methods. 
4. Appraising and comparing data requirements for different methods, advising and collaborating with the work of WP5 as appropriate.

Subtask 4: Performance diagnostics

The main focus of this task will be to examine and possibly begin to validate some of the currently available and more innovative methods to help disaggregate the HTC, this work will encourage usage of HTC as a metric, as it will allow for a deeper insight to the single figure. The ability to probe deeper than a simple headline HTC value will allow for defects and performance issues to be examined, aiming to diagnose causes of the “performance gap” in individual homes. Key tasks: 

1. Developing methods for disaggregating the thermal performance of homes e.g. U-values, airtightness.
2. Cataloguing methods and providing a structured approach for stakeholders to select the correct tool for the required outcome.
3. Improving the accuracy, repeatability, and robustness of methods using feedback from ST3.

Subtask 5: Data collection and curation

In-situ building energy performance measurement techniques require data. Previously there has been a lack of suitable data sets, but this is changing. ST5 will collate the existing data sets; in the initial proposal development workshop several organizations already offered their data for use. New data will be collected as part of ST5 – this will include simulated data, data collected in carefully controlled experiments in test houses (e.g. at University of Salford Energy House Labs and Loughborough University Test Houses), and data from field trials that are currently being commissioned, or will be during the life of the EBC Annex. Key tasks:

1. Cataloguing existing data sets and curating them into repeatable structures with as much contextual information as possible.
2. Collecting new data sets:
   1. Simulations through packages such as EnergyPlus.
   2. Running experiments in test houses.
   3. Utilising field trials to collect data from real in-use homes.
3. Curating data for WP2, WP3, and WP4.