Keir Starmer is on a mission to promote AI across the economy so that Britain can lead the artificial intelligence revolution. It’s a worthy ambition, but I fear that while there’s huge potential to employ it in our sector to reduce costs and drive energy efficiency, we haven’t even started to scratch the technology’s surface.

AI is already being used in smart building systems to monitor and control HVAC and lighting, and more widely across the property sector by helping to provide accurate valuations and planning simulations. However, there’s no reason why it can’t have a big impact on assessments to help landlords take a more data-driven approach to their energy saving strategy; after all, AI can already produce energy models to improve a building’s energy efficiency, provide real-time energy consumption insights and simulate building energy demand under different design parameters.

New regulations, coming soon in the form of updated MEES for both the residential and commercial sectors, should drive the adoption of time- and money-saving AI tools, and could be particularly pertinent in the quality assurance process around energy assessor audits – an area that’s crying out for some high-tech support. Murton & Co’s recent Freedom of Information request revealed a rising number of accreditation schemes’ quality assurance audit fails during the last two years, exposing how poor surveys are eroding our industry’s credibility. Click here to read more.

Murton & Co was an early AI adopter. We’ve been using it in software to provide clients with MEES reports illustrating the impact of energy efficient measures on carbon reduction, EPC and capital expenditure for each property – and it’s been a game-changer. Compiling a report can typically be a laborious process when a client asks for a breakdown of costs to improve glazing or heating, and getting in a chartered surveyor or heating engineer to quote takes weeks. Instead, this software instantly runs thousands of simulations to create a shopping list of cost optimal improvement measures and the cap ex for each, along with the best way to get a building’s EPC to a band B.

For Assessors, using AI-driven software provides costings pinned to a three-week validity period in an environment where prices can be imprecise and overwhelming. Much time and energy are spent sourcing options manually, but this simulator crunches the numbers to come up with permutations around a wide array of energy efficiency measures, without compromising information quality.

Put simply, it gives clients a shopping list of improvements and breaks it down into strategies, outlining costs to achieve the highest rating possible or a longer payback. They then have the confidence to invest in improving their buildings, with the knowledge that pretty much every possibility has been considered. One measure might not have much impact, but align it with other measures and you could well see an improvement. While heating alone might not give you the desired result, putting a package of measures together to reduce carbon improve energy efficiency and the EPC rating should make it more viable.

One NDEA we’ve worked with has used a report as part of their client’s due diligence. The client appreciatedreceiving more comprehensive information and told him: “It’s been a worthwhile exercise to get an economic understanding of the work required to improve the EPC rating of the office. I have put forth those figures in my negotiations with the vendor’s agent and we have now agreed on a purchase price to move forward with me buying the building.”

The process is super speedy too; this technology creates a professional report within 24 hours. You can even start processing another job while the calculations are being done or use it as an assisted management tool on a portfolio of properties, splitting them based on the EPC ratings and focusing on those that need improvements. And if you’re using sub-contractors and don’t have time to study their data, by putting the INP file into the software, it will look at the validation report and confirm its accuracy. I recognise that some Energy Assessors are protective of their data and wary about losing control of modelling, but the information is safe and secure, and the file can’t be altered.

Many in the sector might be reluctant to use AI-based technology, but I can only compare it to when Energy Assessors began using DesignBuilder and soon realised that not having to input data themselves hugely speeded up the process. We’ve assessed more than 600 buildings using this software, and it’s grown our business and given us a competitive edge. With the current uncertainty around upcoming regulations, as well as sometimes questionable training and standards, we now need more Assessors to embrace AI and stimulate our sector.

Contact Murton & Co if you want to trial our ad hoc MEES reports.