Publishing of the bSI Technical Report on BIM & Building Energy Modelling (BEM) Workflows and Data Interoperability

Almost 40 percent of total global CO₂ emissions are caused by various contributors in the built asset industry, a majority of which (80%) comes from existing buildings with poorly designed, constructed, and/or maintained envelopes. In the EU alone, 36% of total greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings, a majority of which (75%) are not designed to effective energy efficiency standards. buildingSMART International (bSI) is convinced that digital ways of working combined with open standards and advanced model-centric tools and workflows can make valuable contributions to sustainability and resource conservation in the construction industry. To address and bring the domains of building information modelling (BIM) and building energy modelling (BEM) together, a bSI Technical Report was developed to lay the groundwork for finding practical, open, standardized solutions for getting the right information into the right hands at the right time.

The Building Room of the bSI Standards and Solutions program is pleased to announce that the Technical Report “Information Delivery Manual (IDM) Development for Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Building Energy Modelling (BEM) Workflows” has been officially approved by bSI Standards Committee and is now available to the public. It was prepared by Jeffrey W. Ouellette (a USA-based BIM consultant), Paul Woodard (a Canada-based BIM/BEM consultant), and Mirbek Bekboliev (Technical Project Manager of buildingSMART Germany, bSI Building Room Steering Committee , and EU Climate Pact Ambassador) and can be download from the buildingSMART International Standards Library.

This work has been peer reviewed by an Expert Panel of stakeholders from the design, energy modelling/analysis, operations, certifications, software, and research domains of the built asset industry. Their feedback helped establish a roadmap for the buildingSMART community and global industry to tackle the challenges of data interoperability for BIM-based processes and exchanges with BEM experts and their tools during the entire lifecycle of a project. The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following Expert Panel participants who provided feedback:

  • Wouter BORSBOOM, TNO Building Physics & Systems, representing TNO and the Netherlands;
  • Pierre BOURREAU, Nobatek/INEF4, and Giacomo MARANI, ATI Project, representing BIM4REN a European Commission H2020 funded project;
  • Jean CARRIÈRE, Trailloop, representing Canadian interests;
  • Sebastian EBERTSHÄUSER, Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, representing buildingSMART Germany and the members of the “BIM and Sustainability” Group:
    • Petra VON BOTH, KIT
    • Felix ROSENDAHL, Solar Computer
    • Elisabeth ECKSTÄDT, Fraunhofer IIS
    • Peter NEURIEDER, Egnaton e. V.
    • Christian RUST, NavVis GmbH
    • Silvia LEBEDA, Hottgenroth
    • Jakob BEETZ, RWTH Aachen
    • Christof VAN TREECK, RWTH Aachen / IBPSA
    • Jérôme FRISCH, RWTH Aachen / IBPSA
    • Amir ABBASPOUR, Personal Member
    • Stefan JAUD, Siemens AG (2021)
    • Matthias WEISE, AEC3 Deutschland
    • Sebastian THEIßEN, Technische Hochschule Köln (2021)
    • Ralf KIRYK, BDH
  • Andrea GASPARELLA, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, leading a team representing the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) and its international affiliates, including:
    • Filippo CALCERANO, Institute of Heritage Science (ISPC), of the Italian National Research Council (CNR)
    • Dru CRAWLEY, Bentley Systems
    • Manuel FREY, Gruner Roschi AG, buildingSMART Switzerland
    • Chip BARNABY
    • Christoph STETTLER, Hochschule Luzern
    • Marcus KEANE, University of Galway
    • Pieter DE WILDE, University of Plymouth
    • Nicolas KELLY, University of Strathclyde
    • Vladimir BAZJANAC, Stanford University
    • Lory McELLROY, University of Strathclyde
  • David GOLDWASSER, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), United States Department of Energy (USDOE);
  • Anna MORENO, iBIMi / buildingSMART Italy, leading the buildingSMART Italy team including:
    • Viola ALBINO, Agenzia del Demanio
    • Lisa BONAGUIDI, University of Rome
    • Paolo BORIN, University of Padua
    • Massimo BORRECA, Minnucci Associati
    • Annamaria BUONOMANO, University of Naples
    • Giulia CENTI, iBIMi
    • Federica CORTESINI, Ministry for Economic Development
    • Pasquale DE PASQUALE, Agenzia del Demanio
    • Emmanuel DI GIACOMO, Autodesk
    • Andrea FERRARA, Musa progetti
    • Cesare FORZANO, University of Naples
    • Elena GIGLIARELLI, CNR-ISPC
    • Leo LORENZI, CNR-ISPC
    • Emanuele MIGNONE, iBIMi
    • Maria Cristina NAPOLANO, University of Naples
    • Daniele RAVAGNI, Ravagni Studio
    • Andrea RUSSO, ACCA Software
    • Massimiliano SCARPA, University of Venice
    • Alberto ZINNO, STRESS-SCARL
    • Enrico ZOCCATELLI, GPS
  • James O’DONNELL, University College Dublin, leading his team of researchers including:
    • Sonia ÁLVAREZ DÍAZ, Fundación CARTIF
    • Flávia ANDRADE PEREIRA, UCD
    • Tobias MAILE, UCD
    • Susana MARTÍN TORAL, Fundación CARTIF
    • Dimitris MAVROKAPNIDIS, University College London
    • Sergio PINHEIRO, UCD
    • Conor SHAW, UCD
    • Divyanshu SOOD, UCD
  • Emanuele ROZAS LERA, Christian FREY, and Kaushik Selva Dhanush RAVI of Siemens Schweiz AG;
  • Luka STEFANOVIC, Vectorworks, Inc.
  • Cyril WAECHTER, Cyril Waechter BIM Insight, representing the Open-Source Architecture (OSARCH) community.

Further public feedback, questions, and interest in pursuing solutions development, as recommended by the report, can be expressed on the buildingSMART Forums in the “BIM-BEM IDM Development” category. For further reference, please see recording of the session (BR5) held recently at the buildingSMART Autumn 2022 Standards Summit in Montreal, Canada, which was also recognized as an EU Climate Pact Satellite Event.

The next steps are 1) to establish a BIM/BEM Working Group or equivalent governing body inside bSI as a focal point for developing solutions within the community, in cooperation with kindred international partners; 2) prioritize the Technical Report recommendations and proposed use cases for further solution development; and 3) formulate activity proposals and projects to address each solution with a team of industry stakeholders. Such activities may include the development of formal Information Delivery Manuals (IDMs) which are able to state internationally agreed solutions to standardized workflows and processes and lead to the formal specification of data exchanges. Other use cases, besides those presented in the Technical Report, may also be proposed and developed within the report’s framework (e.g., “BCF & Issue Management from Building Owners and Sustainability Consultants Perspective” by Mirbek Bekboliev and Gianluca Genova).

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