Sava Intelligent Energy provides calculation, analysis and improvement planning for reducing energy and carbon in housing. It uses data directly from your asset management system.
Built using Sava’s 40 years’ experience at the forefront of energy modelling, Sava Intelligent Energy is used by over 200 housing providers throughout the UK, analysing a combined portfolio of over 3 million properties.
Sava Intelligent Energy uses our powerful RdSAP and SAP engines to calculate the performance of whole stocks with accuracy and speed. Always using the latest version of the national calculation methodology, it delivers the full range of outputs including:
The engines use the latest version of RdSAP – RdSAP 9.94 – but also include a SAP 10 previewer in recognition of SAP 10 being used for RdSAP calculations sometime in 2024.
Many housing providers don’t have a full RdSAP data set on their whole stock. Sava Intelligent Energy uses Sava’s unique MdSAP inference engine that allows a property to calculate with as little as 15 pieces of energy data. For each piece of additional data added, less needs to be inferred and the calculation becomes even more accurate. Sava’s Data Quality Indicator (DQI) assesses the proportion of inferred data to real data for both individual properties and the whole stock.
Hosted on scalable Microsoft Azure servers, Sava Intelligent Energy can calculate the SAP analysis on a stock of 10,000 properties in just 4 minutes.
Housing providers often have incomplete and inaccurate energy data. Data that has come from various sources where the provenance is unknown. In October 2021, BEIS published the results of a survey amongst housing providers that illustrated the many challenges they face. The research found that only a quarter (26%) of social housing providers were sure of the SAP energy rating for a very high proportion of their stock. Almost half (47%) of all providers were unsure and a further 13% weren’t aware of the SAP energy rating for any of their stock.
Understanding your data and establishing what your energy performance currently is must be the first stage of an energy efficiency and zero carbon strategy.
Using data that has been synchronised with your asset management system, Sava Intelligent Energy presents the information in over 150 charts, everything from the SAP rating, through to improvement options, analysed by their carbon or running cost benefit. The charts are interactive and intuitive to use, meaning that you can quickly filter down on thousands of different permutations of property attributes. In this way you can build up a deep knowledge of your housing stock, analysing the data through a multitude of different viewpoints. Filtered properties can be seen in Google Maps and Streetview or simply exported into an Excel spreadsheet.
A fundamental principle of Sava Intelligent Energy is to preserve data integrity and provenance. Maintaining separate energy databases outside of the housing provider’s main asset management system is nearly always disastrous, since creating routines to keep the two data libraries in sync are never maintained.
Sava Intelligent Energy integrates with all the major asset management systems across the UK housing industry. Data integrity is therefore maintained by keeping data in the asset management system, which Sava Intelligent Energy can then access to undertake calculations and analysis.
Housing providers will have a multitude of different targets they wish to set for parts or all of their stock. The UK Government has committed the UK to be zero carbon by 2050, and over the next 30 years housing providers will be on a journey to make their homes zero carbon, but of equal importance, affordable for their residents to live in.
Within Sava Intelligent Energy you can set targets for your whole stock or any subgroup of properties that you have created a filter for. Targets can be carbon reduction (% decrease on current levels), or energy cost (either an EPC band, or a SAP rating).
Setting targets and then running automated improvement plans allows you to establish costed programmes whether for internal planning purposes or to produce high-quality proposals for funding, such as through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.
When setting a carbon target, it’s possible to model any value of carbon factor for electricity grid generation (expressed in kg CO2/kWh). Or you can choose from one of the pre-sets.
Sava Intelligent Energy has a powerful planning module that allows you to create bespoke improvement options for your housing stock. There are four pre-defined improvement packages – EPC recommendation, ECO-funded recommendations, fabric first, or “All Improvements”. Alternatively, you can create a library of your own bespoke improvement packages, with any of the improvement options included. There’s a total of 120 improvements that can be applied to a housing stock, covering fabric, heating, and renewables.
The time to process a plan will vary depending on the number of properties that need to be analysed, but as a guide, 5,000 properties will take around 20 minutes to create.
Once calculated, you can view the plan by property, or by improvement option. Carbon, fuel costs and rating change are cumulative and based on all the measures preceding the recommendations being implemented. As an alternative to viewing the plan within Sava Intelligent Energy, a CSV download contains all the results from the plan as well as some of the RdSAP data inputs and outputs that are useful for costings and further insight.
Each recommendation in an improvement plan has an estimated capital cost. Where possible these capital costs are tailored for the particular property being analysed by using RdSAP input and outputs (such as habitable room count and net wall area).
Capital costs have been sourced from data published mainly by BEIS, the Energy Saving Trust or from commercial sources.
Sava Intelligent Energy integrates seamlessly with all the major asset management systems
Sava Intelligent Energy is great. We use it on a daily basis with the data and planning team. It helps us make decisions for the business and it is driving our zero carbon reduction strategy. It also helps us prepare funding bids such as SHDF Wave 1 which we were successful with.”
Capita has partnered with Sava for many years. Sava Intelligent Energy is integrated with our core housing management product to allow our customers to manage their properties better. The partnership with Sava is very important to us at Capita as it allows us to better our products and allows our customers to better analyse their housing stock.”
We have been working with Sava for the last 15 years. They have provided excellent software and are a great partner to develop with. We work well together from a service perspective and it is a good partnership that we are looking forward to continuing.”
We have had a long relationship with Sava over many years. Our two solutions are complementary, and we couldn’t do what we do without them. That relationship is crucial. It means that we can give our customers the information they need in order to work towards zero carbon.”
We can help you whatever your position and wherever you are in your carbon goal planning.
Sava Intelligent Energy is already used by over 200 social housing providers across England, Wales and Scotland to manage over 3 million homes.
Without sufficient knowledge of the energy attributes of a housing stock it’s impossible to devise an improvement strategy that will take you cost effectively towards lower carbon and lower running costs. And to be successful in bidding for funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, having confidence in the data you hold on your stock is a priority.
Sava Intelligent Energy software integrates with all the major asset management systems usually deployed with a housing provider, ensuring data integrity and a quick set up process. Sava Intelligent Energy can also integrate through an API with bespoke proprietary asset management systems that a housing provider may have developed themselves.
Get in touch with Sava’s relationship management team members Mark, Colette and Alys to discuss your needs and how we might help at technology@sava.co.uk.
In November 2020 BEIS issued a consultation where they sought views on how mortgage lenders can help householders to improve the energy performance of their homes.
The Government was suggesting that lenders such as banks and buildings could have a role in building a market for energy performance improvements and the consultation set out a range of proposals that could improve the energy performance of mortgaged properties, and deliver substantial emission reductions. Proposals included the disclosure of energy performance across each lender’s portfolio, through to setting voluntary and mandatory targets for improvement.
Sava’s analytical software models could be used by lenders to analyse their existing portfolios, using our proprietary Minimum Data SAP (MdSAP) where data is incomplete. Sava Intelligent Energy could model costed improvement plans to meet carbon and EPC targets. A public facing interface could be deployed to allow homeowners to interrogate their property, model improvement options and apply for funding.
Contact: Dr Neil Cutland, Consultancy Director technology@sava.co.uk
Improving the energy performance of a housing stock requires a partnership approach between the organisations in the supply chain, from engineering consultancies, sustainability experts, funders, through to main contractors and their subcontractors.
Sava works with all the main players to ensure the client gets the best solution for the best value. In particular, we have a special license of Intelligent Energy that can be used by consultants and contractors to analyse the housing stock of their particular client.
Contact: Andy Flook, Development Director technology@sava.co.uk
Data integrity is critical for those managing a large housing stock. That’s why a unique feature of Sava Intelligent Energy is that it integrates seamlessly with all the major asset management system providers, ensuring the client only maintains a single version of the truth, as well as ensuring that the energy data is automatically updated when routine maintenance is undertaken and recorded in the system (such as gas boiler details).
We want to expand the number of systems that Sava Intelligent Energy integrates with, to ensure that all parties can benefit from access to the data they need to make intelligent decisions.
Contact: Andy Flook, Development Director technology@sava.co.uk
Dr Lisa Blake joined the Sava team in 2006 and is currently Technical Director, working with Sava Intelligent Energy and SAP/ RdSAP. Since working for Sava, she has worked in various technical roles supporting our customers and software development.
Lisa is originally from London where she studied Physics at Kings College London and moved to Milton Keynes to complete her PhD in Astrophysics. After a brief spell teaching, she initially joined Sava as an Energy Consultant, working with Social Landlords and developing her understanding of SAP.
She likes cats, death metal, beer, maths, and SUP. In her spare time, she enjoys preserving dead animals.
Mark Sreeves became Sava’s Technical Sales Manager in 2014. He takes the leading role within the company of working with our software clients to understand how we can meet their needs, provide in-depth training, and delivering technical webinars.
Mark obtained a BSc in Science and Technology at Middlesex University and since the late 1980s has worked as an energy consultant supporting organisations with energy efficiency, fuel poverty and managing carbon. He is a qualified energy assessor (and a teacher) and is committed to working in an area of work that is helping to maintain and improve the environment.
Outside of work, Mark enjoys going to the theatre and cinema and more recently has been learning more about plants and trees by creating a garden.
Colette joined Sava in November 2020 as Relationship Director for Technology. Working with Sava’s Intelligent Energy data analysis and planning tool, her role includes building excellent relationships with Sava’s clients, prospects and integration partners to promote, develop and grow the product and business, whilst helping to reduce the overall carbon emissions and fuel costs within housing.
Colette is a Chartered member of the Institute of Housing and has a BSc in Housing. Starting her career at Cardiff Council’s Housing Department she undertook various roles from helping residents with financial matters, social needs and neighbourhood issues through to managing Cardiff’s responsive repairs service. After implementing a housing system at the Council, she moved into the software world working for some of the leading housing and asset management system suppliers, presenting, consulting on and implementing systems in social housing organisations across the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and South Africa. With her unparalleled knowledge and experience of the social housing sector, she played a major part in these suppliers’ growth, success and reputation for the highest levels of customer service.
In her spare time, Colette either volunteers at St Vincent’s, a centre providing the building blocks and practical support to turn problems into positive futures for everyone in the area, or is occupied by her endless home refurbishment and running around for her family (sometimes in a chicken suit!!)