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AI for energy saving verification service, increasing the trust on EPCs

An Energy Performance Contract (EPC) is a contractual agreement between the beneficiary, facility owner or manager, and the provider, an Energy Service Company (ESCO). Provider agrees to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy measures in the facility, and the beneficiary agrees to pay for the measures based on the energy savings that result from their implementation.

The main goal of EPCs is to improve the facility´s energy efficiency while reducing costs. Typically, this is done by reducing the amount of energy consumed by the facility or by generating energy using renewable energy sources. The ESCO is responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining the energy efficiency and renewable energy measures, while the facility owner or manager is responsible for paying for the measures based on the energy savings achieved.

EPCs are often used in commercial, industrial, and institutional facilities and in public sector buildings. They can be a useful tool for facility owners and managers who want to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy costs, but lack the expertise, resources, or funding to do so on their own.

Moreover, regarding the EPCs and their compliance there is currently no system for verifying the energy savings achieved. This creates uncertainty for the beneficiary of the EPC.

I-NERGY aims to develop a tool based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to verify the energy savings obtained, increasing the trust on EPCs. Energy savings verification is a crucial task, so methods (based on protocols like IPMVP) to estimate savings need data: static and dynamic data to build simulation and estimations.

To develop the user-friendly tool for Measurement and Verification (M&V), monitoring data from a residential building in Burgos (Spain) is used. The building was constructed in 1993. The building has 8 floors, one of which is below ground level, where the garages are located. On the ground floor are the entrances to the dwellings and the commercial areas. On the upper floor are the storage rooms and the boiler room of the building. The rest of the building houses the dwellings, a total of 80.

The boiler room was completely renovated in 2020. Two De Dietrich condensing boilers were installed, one with a power of 260 kW and the other with a power of 460 kW.

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VEOLIA in this pilot is covering the role of Energy Service Company (ESCO), aiming at generating analytics to improve the ESCO model. This business model is based on achieving a proper balance between the investment and the energy savings achieved to reduce the ROI as much as possible.

In order to determine if the pilot achieves the goals, the following users stories are considered:

  • Reduced error rates in facilities and following costs
  • Better evaluation of EP Contracts
  • Development of further saving measures

To quantify the users stories, the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are defined:

KPI Definition
Reduced error in energy saving estimation The reduction of the difference between the estimated and the actual energy savings, in comparison to the reference period.
Trust to the EP Contracts by the consumers This KPI tries to evaluate the satisfaction and the trust of the consumers to the EP Contracts.
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