70 Whitehall

Since 1 October 2008 public buildings in the UK over 1,000m² have been required to display a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) prominently at all times. Display Energy Certificates were introduced by the Government in response to the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive which all EU member states were required to implement by January 2009.

DECs are designed to promote the improvement of the energy performance of buildings. They are based upon the actual energy performance of a building and increase transparency about the energy efficiency of public buildings. DECs use a scale from A to G with A being the most efficient and G the least. The Display Energy Certificate for 70 Whitehall is available through the link on the right.

70 Whitehall's historical resource use is available in these CSV files. We are deciding which other formats to provide data in, so if you would like to use the data for a purpose that requires another kind of file or feed, then let us know, and we'll see what we can do!

How do you calculate the CO₂ emissions from a unit of electricity or gas used?

The government produces conversion factors that describe the typical carbon impact of different energy sources. These allow us to take the electricity or gas use in kilowatt-hours (kWh) or gas use in cubic metres (m³), and calculate the approximate carbon dioxide emissions, normally measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide (kgCO₂). We have used the conversion factors from Defra's 2009 Guidelines. The factors in use at each particular building are noted below in the Assumptions section.

Why is there no scale on the small real time graph?

We made a small, simple real time display graph (we call it a 'teaser') so that organisations can communicate about real-time energy use on their homepages. The intention of the teaser is to present very simple, somewhat intriguing information that attracts browsing users to the profile page (this page!). It has to work in a very small area, and it can't support detailed enquiry.

The building profile page where you are now is where the real information lives. This is where we provide much more detail for those who have the time and inclination to learn more.

How do you get this data from the buildings?

Getting this energy data out of some buildings is harder than others, but in general the buildings contain a small low-power computer which takes very frequent readings from the electricity and gas meters and stores the data. Every few seconds, this computer sends the information it has collected to a server. Your browser will then ask this server for the data it needs in order to draw the real-time detailed graphs and website teasers. The energy impact of this process is very low, and it gets lower with each additional site that uses the system.

What do the colours on the graph mean?

The colours in the graph show approximately how the current level of usage would lead to a given Operational Rating – as set out on a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) – if the performance for a given moment carried on for an entire year. This goes from dark green for ‘A’ to red for ‘G’. We calibrate this using input data used for generating the building’s DEC, together with information relating to 'normal' buildings of its type.

Why are you using these units and what do they mean?

We provide three different measures of the energy used: the amount of energy, its monetary cost, and the carbon impact of the energy used.

Energy use is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh), which are the standard ‘units’ of a home energy bill (1kWh is the amount of electricity used by leaving ten 100W light bulbs on for one hour).
For electricity this number represents the amount of energy that flows into a building through the meter, while for gas it is the amount of energy that is theoretically available by burning all the gas. So the two numbers mean very different things - this is one reason that we try to use 'units per hour' when combining them. Really it would be better not to combine them at all, because it can lead to confusion

Monetary cost is calculated using the costs per 'unit' for electricity and for gas in each building. The figures used are noted below in the Assumptions section.

The carbon impact is measured in kg of CO₂. We have not taken the option of reporting carbon emissions in terms of CO₂e (the e stands for equivalent) which takes other climate-affecting gasses into account besides carbon dioxide. We are considering reporting in terms of CO₂e, let us know if you think that's a good idea. Incidentally, for Government buildings, reporting as CO₂ rather than CO₂e is consistent with the formal reporting requirements on the departments occupying them.

How much does this organisation pay for its energy?

Prices come from the latest energy bills for the Cabinet Office, which are noted below in the Assumptions section. These are of course subject to change, and will be updated by the organisations themselves as tariffs are revised.

Can you show data from the transport emissions of this organisation/ building?

Data of CO₂ emissions created by transport used by organisations is very interesting and powerful data to show here. We are working on ways to display and reduce the transport impacts of different organisations, and you will see some of the products of this work on these pages very soon.

one

Carbon conversion factors of grid electricity and gas are based on Defra’s 2009 guidance. The factors in use are 0.25698 per kWh for district heating and 0.54055 per kWh for electricity.

two

Prices come from the latest Cabinet Office energy bills, which for district heating average out at 2.90p per unit (please note that we currently are using the net price as no bills for this year are available yet) and for electricity average out at 12.03p per unit.

three

As far as the widget is concerned, there are 12 distinct 5-second periods in a minute. The real-time data is for the five second period just ended, which means that sometimes the widget could display values that are nearly 10 seconds old.

four

Because we have used the pulse-outputs of electrical and gas meters there are certain assumptions we need to make in order to generate a real-time value. The pulses from the meters actually signify a volume of gas or an amount of energy, and we need to determine a flow of gas or electrical power from the pulses. Since at any given moment you are always between one pulse and the next, you have to

guess, to a certain extent, when the next pulse will come in order to estimate the actual flow or power. The accuracy of the guess depends on how close together the pulses are, so at busy times you hardly need to guess at all. The pulses from the main electricity meter come every 100 watt-hours, which is enough to let us overcome the issue by counting the number of pulses in a five second period and applying a calculation to smooth successive readings into a rate, even at night. The main gas meter pulses once for each cubic metre consumed, which for properly variable loads could leave us guessing for quite a while before the next pulse comes.