The benefits of DECs on line
The intention of a Display Energy Certificate and its associated advisory report is to raise awareness of energy usage in public buildings, thus encouraging a greater effort in energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. So reasoned I-prophets Energy Services, why not make the DEC available on a web site? That philosophy won for the company the award for low-carbon innovation of the year — design or technical.
This web application enables the DEC and its advisory report to be viewed from multiple locations at a glance, making the information in the advisory report visible and usable.
I-prophets Energy Services says that it has already seen evidence of carbon reductions at Keele University, where the portal has been rolled out across departments — allocating energy targets with ratings. Results after only three months show that most departments will improve their operational rating by at least one grade in nine months’ time.
Associated with the on-line portal is a hand-held application for increasing the productivity of a DEC assessor on site by up to 50%. It removes the need for paper sheets to speed up completion and captures an audit trail in terms of survey information and pictures. Finally, it enables assessors to interact with customers to provide awareness of the process through the survey. Information is transferred directly to the web application.
The DEC portal can also interact with an online building log book, enabling energy information and information about building construction and management to be collated in one place.
