Performance gap

Energy efficient buildings

Projects are normally designed to idealised predicted energy standards, but buildings rarely meet these predictions in the real world. This so called ‘performance gap’ – the gap between predicted and in-use energy performance is estimated at a massive 200-450%.

Our aim is to offer energy performance optimisation as standard on all projects, and we are exploring how this might be done through our Energy Synergy initiative.

Energy Synergy incorporates the lessons we learned during the construction in 2017 of the multi-award-winning George Davies Centre – the UK’s largest non-domestic Passivhaus project.

During 2018, we began a cross-company study trialling Energy Synergy, focusing on 21 pilot projects with a project value of close to £400m.

Energy Synergy follows a project from inception to completion – and beyond. It involves calculating a project’s energy usage at design stage, and then monitoring and managing energy performance once the building has been built, identifying areas for improvement, and feeding lessons learned into our future projects.

We believe that we are the only UK contractor to be taking such a structured approach to energy efficiency at this scale, and early indications are that Energy Synergy has the potential to help our customers make energy and cost savings of between 5-15%.

The projects currently participating in the Energy Synergy trial are:

Lincoln South Park

The University of Warwick Sports hub

Stone Leisure Centre

IBRB University of Warwick

Park Lane

University of Birmingham - School of Engineering

Crocus Place Nottingham

Nottingham Custody Suite

Sutton Secondary School

Woodmansterne Secondary School

Reef SEN School, Haslemere