Dr. Oliver Kinnane:

It could be a shared effort. There is almost space for another profession in between architecture and construction, for somebody who monitors the end product. The SEAI might take it on or an offshoot of the SEAI, together with academia. The data certainly are of much interest to us in the research community. The actual technology to do it is available. We do it, for example with the nZeb101 project that we are doing, where we go in and put CT clamps - I cannot remember what the acronym stands for - on the electricity supply and depending on how the board is broken up, we can monitor electrical supply to different elements. That becomes even easier in the case of heat pumps. With gas fired boilers it is more difficult to get flow meters that are reliable and calibrated to monitor gas supply. We can take some readings from billing information. There are a lot of data out there, although getting a handle on it is difficult. New heat pump technology monitors much of the energy usage of the heat pump and can be downloaded. Making that available in the long term is something I would like to see. Maybe it starts in non-residential buildings and then moves on to residential buildings but I think it is achievable.

On the point of occupants and new technologies, it is going to be a big issue in the coming years as we introduce new heating technologies into the system. We do many occupant surveys of buildings we monitor. There is a lack of knowledge of the operating of heat pump systems, where the output temperatures are much lower than in an oil-fired boiler radiator system. Occupants are expecting the same high temperature touch to the radiator and when they do not get it, they might turn up the system and then throw everything off balance. There is certainly room for much occupant education as well at different levels. That needs to be done.