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Can big data drive the market for residential energy efficiency?

Panel: 8. Monitoring and evaluation: building confidence and enhancing practices

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Ezilda Costanzo, ENEA, Italy
David Weatherall, Energy Saving Trust, United Kingdom
Andreas Androutsopoulos, CRES - Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving, Buildings Dept, Greece
Virginia Gomez Onate, VITO, Belgium

Abstract

The building sector is fragmented and disaggregated; hence the availability of reliable data on building characteristics, energy use and related socio-economic factors has been challenging. However, European energy efficiency analysts increasingly have access to one major source of building level data: Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) registers. Much wider access to, and affordability of large scale data handling technologies (the “big data revolution”) makes possible the presentation of this data in accessible ways for market actors. But to what extent do new data services overcome the well understood barriers to the development of the market for home energy efficiency?

The Request2Action (R2A) Intelligent Energy Europe project is being delivered in 9 countries, principally by national energy agencies responsible for managing EPC databases. The project has aims to drive retrofit action by making retrofit data available to home-owners, the supply chain and policy makers in new and dynamic ways.

This paper does not review the technology underpinning these sophisticated data services, instead we focus on if and how the different market actors respond to the new information being made available. Within the R2A project hundreds of stakeholder in 8 countries collaborated in providing specifications, information and evaluation that are essential to guarantee effectiveness of the data tools. Hence a detailed evaluation of the stakeholder response to the big data tools has been developed.

Using the quantitative and qualitative data collected, our paper will consider the value of new data tools in stimulating the retrofit market. Do manufacturers and installers need address-level data about the energy efficiency of homes, or can they find a market without this additional data? How can this data drive a more evidence-based approach to policy making? For individual home owners, does better data drive higher uptake of financing or other incentive programmes?

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