What is M&V 2.0 and why is it important for decarbonising the building industry?

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M&V stands for Measurement and Verification – in Danish often referred to as "before and after measurements". As the Danish term indicates, measurements are taken before and after energy improvements are made to document that the energy savings live up to expectations.

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Tangible improvements of M&V processes with AI.

M&V is one of the processes that can be greatly improved with artificial intelligence. This is where '2.0' comes in. 

Traditionally, it has been an expensive and slow process to collect and analyse data to estimate energy savings. Partly, because the consumption of a building is affected by many other things than just the technical installations being optimised. For example, user behaviour or the weather can also have an impact on energy consumption.

But it is precisely the process of "understanding" consumption based on many complex variables that artificial intelligence is particularly well suited to. The super-advanced algorithms can therefore be used to understand the consumption in each individual building, before and after energy optimisation.

Under the "bonnet" of the virtual energy advisor are a number of advanced algorithms that keep an eye on this. Below, for example, you can see how the energy consumption of a building is affected by the outdoor temperature to cool the building during both baseload and active operation. It can be seen, for instance, that this particular building uses active cooling when it is warmer than about 20 degrees outside:

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Graphs like the above are not necessarily something that users need to keep an eye on. Their main purpose is for the system to identify how a building is affected by different internal and external factors. By this, it can establish an understanding of the building’s consumption before and after an energy improvement is implemented.

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Energy baselines visualise how well a building operates.

In practice, this means that these before and after measurements are documented by the virtual energy advisor with energy baselines. In the figure below, these energy baselines, or stages of operation, are marked with horizontal lines. A red line indicates that the building is not operating optimally, while the blue line indicates that the building is operating optimally again:

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Establishing these energy baselines is important in the green transition of the building sector because it provides a tool that can effectively measure the impact of each individual measure - independently of the factors affecting energy consumption. It is therefore relevant for both the building owner and, to a large extent, the installer and supplier, who can now be held accountable for the savings achieved.

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