The National Building Database (NBD): a step change in understanding the energy performance of buildings in GB

29 November, 2023

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CREDS researchers are involved in development of the National Building Database (NBD), a unique evidence base to understand buildings and their energy consumption. 

The National Building Database (NBD) will provide a unique evidence base to understand buildings and their energy consumption in Great Britain.  This £2.7m project builds the earlier Non-Domestic Buildings Survey (NDBS) which drew on a decade of development of the 3DStock model to test the methods and drive a new and much more comprehensive understanding of energy consumption in the hospitality sector.

Figure: National Building Database visualisation of map layers.

The NBD project, fully funded by the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, will bring together existing and new data to develop a comprehensive and uniquely structured database in which represents every building in England, Wales and Scotland with particular emphasis on addressing gaps in the non-domestic building stock.  The database will comprise a spatially located geometrical representation of each building to which will be assigned data on age, construction, internal activities, building services, energy rating and actual energy use.  An emphasis will be placed on addressing gaps in understanding of the non-domestic building stock.

The NBD is led by the Building Stock Laboratory at UCL and builds on a decade of development of the 3DStock model, which has been in-part supported by CREDS.  The project team is led by Professor Paul Ruyssevelt and it draws on the expertise of researchers from the lab and across the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER) as detailed below.

Publicly available data and data held by the government will be supplemented by primary data drawn from a set of telephone surveys conducted by project partners Winning Moves and a series of site based audits conducted by project partners Verco.

Building Stock Lab Researchers: Shyam Amrith, Steve Evans, Daniel Godoy Shimizu, Pamela Fennell, Dominic Humphrey, Rob Liddiard, Argyris Oraiopoulos, Gareth Simons, Olly Smith, Paul Ruyssevelt and Phil Steadman.

BSEER Researchers: Esfand Burman, Simon Elam, Jess Few, Sun Min Hong, Ivan Korolija, Dejan Mumovic and Catalina Spataru.

Banner photo credit: Adobe Stock