StepUP

Project Summary

Deep renovation is key to drastically reduce energy demand and achieve the EU vision of a decarbonised building stock by 2050. The technology to achieve this reduction is available on the market today, but shallow retrofits persist with low impacts on energy consumption, due to a variety of barriers that make deep renovation a risky investment. To transform the market and increase the rate of renovation across Europe, it needs to become an attractive, low-risk investment.

StepUP will develop a new process for deep renovation for decarbonisation, with fast design to operation feedback loops to minimise the performance gap, reduce investment risk and maximise value. The project will deliver plug&play technologies to minimise disruption to building occupants, which will be interconnected and interoperable to maximise impact on energy, costs, IEQ and user comfort. The StepUP iterative approach to renovation, based in big data for continuous performance improvement, will reduce financial barriers and make decarbonisation of existing buildings a reliable, attractive investment. 

IES' Role

IES is the coordinator of the StepUP project, managing its implementation on both the scientific and administrative sides, ensuring its smooth progress and liaising with the European Commission. 

IES will lead the development of the StepUP renovation methodology in close cooperation with the project partners. The holistic approach to the methodology, based in M&V principles, will enable the set up of a value-based renovation process rooted in baseline data and short cycles of design-installation-feedback iterations inspired by the Agile iterative approach. 

To minimise the performance gap, the methodology will include differential diagnostic measures and both technological and non-technological energy conservation measures (ECMs), while monitoring user behaviour and satisfaction levels after each renovation step and after completion. IES in particular will focus on retro-commissioning, baselining and monitoring. We will also explore prototype applications of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), such as blockchain, to the renovation process.

IES will also lead the development of the integrated software solutions for data intelligence and the platform to manage the whole renovation design and management process. This will build extensively on our existing iSCAN and VE technologies to enable the creation of robust baseline models for decision making, to allow the optimisation of various renovation scenarios and to identify the option with the highest impact and value. The Design Platform prototype will be leveraged to enable sharing of information across the whole value chain to provide full transparency on the renovation as it progresses. 

IES tools will be deployed early in the project for testing in the pilots, and will be progressed in concert with the feedback received from end users. IES will lead the continuous monitoring and adjustment actions in the pilots, to ensure that the methodology and the tools continue to be developed, tested and demonstrated on a robust data baseline.

Test Sites

• Hungary
• Scotland (Virtual Pilot)
• Spain