Learning from failure: understanding the anticipated–achieved building energy performance gap

Abstract

Over the past 20 years a number of studies have identified and provided explanations for a significant 'performance gap' between designed and actual energy performance of buildings. The anticipated and achieved energy performance of an advanced, innovative building that aspired to net-positive energy performance is studied: the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) building at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Selected performance 'failures' that became evident during operation of CIRS are studied for how they were discovered and the efforts required for their resolution: the energy systems and associated controls and monitoring. The key findings show the barriers were neither economic nor technical. Instead, the primary impediments were institutional regimesarising from the ways that various life-cycle stages were specified, contracted and implemented. The key issues emphasize the importance of having meaningful and effective building energy monitoring capabilities, an understanding of energy system boundaries in design and analysis, crossing the gaps between different stages of a building life cycle, and feedback processes throughout design and operation. The disclosure of 'failure' and lessons learned is a valuable contribution to subsequent advancement for the building stakeholders and the wider professional and research communities.

A Review of the Regulatory Energy Performance Gap and Its Underlying Causes in Non-domestic Buildings

“…Most common sources are calibration errors, or the absence of calibration (Palmer and Armitage, 2014). Fedoruk et al (2015) identified that system measurements were not accurately representing its performance due to mislabeling, incorrect installation, and not being calibrated. They report that simply having access to large amounts of data may actually result in more confusion and operational problems.…”

Energy-related standards and UK speculative office development

“…This paper defines a lower-energy office as one designed to minimize the amount of energy required in normal operation. This is not to deny the existence or importance of the 'performance gap' (Fedoruk et al, 2015) as an explanation of how energy performance can fail to manifest. It is clearly important that many energy demanding processes are unregulated, and that the ways in which tenants occupy buildings can be responsible for much energy use (Arup, 2013;Fedoruk et al, 2015;Menezes, Cripps, Bouchlaghem, & Buswell, 2012).…”

“…(Not) delivering speculatively built lowerenergy offices A better understanding of the energy efficiency of specifically commercial office buildings has previously been identified as a research gap (Axon, Bright, Dixon, Janda, & Kolokotroni, 2012;Nicholls, 2014;Oreszczyn & Lowe, 2009), although recent studies have contributed much to knowledge, focusing particularly on benchmarking (Hsu, 2014), the performance gap (Cohen & Bordass, 2015;De Wilde, 2014;Fedoruk, Cole, Robinson, & Cayuela, 2015;Lewry, 2015;van Dronkelaar, Dowson, Spataru, & Mumovic, 2016), the accuracy of building assessment methods (see below), effects on rent and sale values (Kontokosta, 2013) and behavioural influences and interventions (Hong & Lin, 2014;Mulville, Jones, Huebner, & Powell-Greig, 2016;Tetlow, van Dronkelaar, Beaman, Elmualim, & Couling, 2015).…”

Energy performance gaps: promises, people, practices

“…As noted by Fedoruk, Cole, Robinson, and Cayuela (2015) there are many stakeholders other than the occupants whose actions must be taken into consideration in order to 'close the gap'. This calls for considering the ways in which buildings are designed, constructed and operated by different cohorts of professionals.…”