The New Opportunities Unlocked through Be Seen

There are key benefits to developers of monitoring energy use under the GLA Be Seen requirements, but these will not be achieved through the minimum requirements alone. With the cost of energy high on everyone’s agenda, demonstrating that a project will be monitoring energy use can be a key sales feature and provide comfort to customers.

Knowing how actual energy use compares to design stage and as-built predictions can help developers to understand if there is a performance gap and where it is. With this knowledge comes the ability to make improvements to reduce energy use. It also provides design teams with an opportunity to make changes to designs for future schemes, increasing energy efficiency and quality with each project.

The intent with Be Seen is to understand operational energy performance, monitor the performance gap and take action to reduce the gap between targets and actual consumption. The overarching aim being to truly achieve net zero-carbon buildings. Due to legalities with obtaining individual dwelling-level data where the developer is not also the energy provider, the minimum requirements have been relaxed somewhat, making it difficult to fully realise the Be Seen intent. Despite some challenges, when done properly, monitoring of in-use performance provides substantial opportunities.