Advancing the use of space data and digital twins in cities
Responsible for 40 % of the EU’s total energy consumption, Europe’s building stock is the single largest consumer of energy(opens in new window), and one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide – the primary driver of climate change. If Europe is to meet its ambitious goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050, it must improve the energy efficiency of its buildings. Space downstream data can support this goal. “With space data and services, we have an opportunity to transform urban development and construction practices,” says Stamatia Rizou, R&D manager at SingularLogic(opens in new window). The BUILDSPACE(opens in new window) project, coordinated by SingularLogic in Greece, demonstrates how Copernicus(opens in new window) Earth Observation(opens in new window) data, together with digital twin technologies, can support energy-efficient buildings and climate-resilient cities. “Our aim is to bridge the gap between advanced space data and real operational needs in the building and urban planning sectors, delivering technically robust and ready-to-use solutions,” adds Rizou.
Using digital twins to identify heat loss
Taking a user-centred, co-creation-focused approach that involved over 100 stakeholders, including city authorities, urban planners, engineers and researchers from nine countries (Belgium, France, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom), the project designed and tested five unique services. Two of these services looked to help optimise a building’s operational efficiency by reconstructing a digital twin of the structure. This was done using a combination of drones, thermography and simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) – three approaches that benefit from the precise navigation and positioning provided by a Galileo-enabled(opens in new window) global navigation satellite system(opens in new window) (GNSS). SLAM enables autonomous robotic mobile scanning of indoor, outdoor and subterranean environments. “These services help building facility managers, urban planners, and real estate and construction companies understand the state of the building in terms of heat loss or other energy-related incidents, which can be observed in the digital twin,” explains Rizou.
Climate control – and adaptation based on EU space data
The project also delivered three city-scale services that can be used to predict how climate change, urban heat and flooding impact a city’s built environment. All three services leverage Copernicus data and products. For example, the urban heat analysis tool uses Copernicus and socio-economic and demographic data to evaluate how urban heat impacts a building’s energy demand. The built environment climate scenarios service, on the other hand, combines geospatial datasets, standardised models and Copernicus climate projections. The result is an interactive, web-based tool that estimates and projects the energy demand of residential building stock under current and future climate conditions. Finally, the urban flood resilience service integrates Copernicus land-use data and local data to provide users with map-based calculations for assessing expected flood damage to buildings as well as identifying urban flood vulnerability hotspots. All the project’s services were tested in real-world pilots in Greece, Latvia, Poland and Slovenia.
Supporting key EU priorities
The BUILDSPACE project successfully advanced the practical use of space data and digital twins in the built environment. “We concretely demonstrated how space data can be transformed into actionable decision support tools for making buildings more energy-efficient and cities more climate-resilient,” concludes Rizou. In doing so, the project supports such key EU priorities as the European Green Deal(opens in new window), Renovation Wave(opens in new window) and Energy Performance of Buildings Directive(opens in new window). The project’s many partners are now busy integrating BUILDSPACE’s results into follow-up research, municipal workflows, and commercial and service-based offerings.
