Baseline Reference Data - ReLIFE-Project-EU/relife-wiki GitHub Wiki
Baseline Reference Data
Introduction
Baseline Reference Data consists of pre-compiled, infrequently updated datasets that describe the European building stock and its context. In ReLIFE, these datasets serve as the starting point for analyses and services: they provide harmonized assumptions for building archetypes, technology costs, and typical end-use energy needs. The baseline is designed to be consistent across EU-27, transparent in scope, and suitable for comparisons with evidence-based (“dynamic”) enhancements.
Sections
Building stock (EU-27 archetype baseline)
The building stock dataset provides a harmonized description of buildings across all 27 EU Member States. Buildings are structured by sector and type, using a typology that supports consistent cross-country comparisons and downstream modelling.
| Sector | Categories used in ReLIFE |
|---|---|
| Residential buildings | Single-family and terraced housesMultifamily housesApartment blocks |
| Service buildings | OfficesTradeEducationHealthHotels and restaurantsOther non-residential buildings |
To capture the effect of construction standards and renovation history, each building type is further differentiated by construction vintage classes:
| Vintage class | Years |
|---|---|
| 1 | before 1945 |
| 2 | 1945–1969 |
| 3 | 1970–1979 |
| 4 | 1980–1989 |
| 5 | 1990–1999 |
| 6 | 2000–2010 |
| 7 | 2011–2023 |
Each resulting building set (e.g., “Austrian multifamily houses, 1970–1979”) is characterized by a comprehensive parameter vector (currently ~65 parameters). These parameters cover, among others, geometry and size, construction and materials, thermal properties, energy demand for space heating, cooling, and domestic hot water, and selected occupancy/ownership descriptors. The intent is not to describe individual buildings, but to provide a representative baseline for statistical groups.
Technology investment costs - Capital Expenditure (CAPEX)
CAPEX data provides harmonized investment costs for common renovation measures and technologies across EU-27. These costs are used as baseline inputs for economic assessments and scenario analyses. Covered measures include (among others):
- envelope measures (wall, roof, floor insulation; window replacement),
- heating technologies (e.g., heat pump installation, condensing boiler installation),
- onsite generation and solar heat (PV systems, solar thermal panels).
Technology operating costs - Operating Expenditure (OPEX)
OPEX data covers heating systems and PV panels and is split into fixed operation and maintenance (O&M) costs and energy costs. Fixed O&M costs include maintenance and insurance and are derived from scientific literature. Energy costs apply to heating systems only and are based on Eurostat data.
Energy Performance Certificates baseline
In addition to EU-wide archetype baselines, ReLIFE analyses also rely on administrative building datasets where available (e.g., national Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and building registries). In the context of ReLIFE research workflows (including analyses related to EPC validity as a proxy for operational performance), these datasets act as a baseline description at the building record level.
Typical contents include:
- EPC information (e.g., label/class, calculated indicators, technology descriptors where available, validity periods),
- building registry attributes (e.g., construction year, building type, floor/heated area, number of dwellings/units, and other structural descriptors depending on the registry).
These sources are particularly valuable because they provide structured, standardized descriptors that are widely used in policy and professional practice. At the same time, they are not measurements of real operation; therefore they are often evaluated and complemented using dynamic data (e.g., metered time series) in dedicated workflows.
Energy consumption datasets
This subsection summarizes measured energy consumption and load datasets used to characterize real-world energy use and support benchmarking across contexts.
| Dataset | Description and purpose | Data type / notes |
|---|---|---|
| Croatian public buildings | Building-level dataset containing reported monthly energy consumption and water use data for public buildings, together with basic building characteristics. | Energy consumption time series (building level). |
| SmartMeter Energy Consumption Data in London Households | Dataset containing half-hourly electricity consumption measurements from anonymized residential smart meters in London households, including timestamps and tariff group information. | Smart meter consumption time series (household level). |
| OpenMeter Dataplatform | Web-based platform providing smart meter data with filtering, preprocessing (e.g. resampling and conversion), visualization, download functionality, and REST API access. | Metering/monitoring platform dataset. |
| Forefront Dataset | Dataset contains smart meter data and EPC status information for residential buildings in Aalborg (2018–2022) and is used to analyse energy consumption patterns in relation to building energy labels. | Observational / monitoring dataset. |
| Wind-Solar-Heat Pump District (WPuQ) | Dataset contains multi-year electric load measurements from 38 residential households in Lower Saxony, Germany, provided at multiple temporal resolutions and including spatial aggregations and weather data. | District/system dataset; multi-vector context. |
| Danish residential buildings smart meter | Dataset contains cleaned and anonymized hourly smart heat meter data from Danish residential buildings, including building characteristics and energy label information where available | Smart meter time series (residential buildings). |
| AEMO NEM aggregated price and demand | Dataset contains aggregated regional electricity demand and reference price data from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) National Electricity Market (NEM). | Aggregated price & demand time series. |
| Belgium electricity smart meter sample | Dataset containing 15-minute electricity consumption and injection data from anonymized residential smart meters in Flanders, including timestamps and indicators for household equipment (e.g. PV, heat pump, EV) and contract category. | Electricity smart meter sample (time series). |
| Belgium gas meter sample | Dataset containing hourly gas consumption data from anonymized residential smart meters in Flanders, including timestamps, meter type, and contract category information. | Gas meter sample (time series). |
| Lower Saxony residential electric load | Excel dataset listing building renovation components and energy systems together with technical characteristics and cost information (e.g. thermal properties, capacities, efficiencies, and unit prices). | Excel table with technical and cost data |
[!NOTE] Access and licensing conditions for national registries and EPC datasets can differ substantially. ReLIFE documents dataset-specific terms in the metadata.
References
[!NOTE] Links to the respective datasets here?
How To Cite
Francesca Conselvan and Nikolaus Diez, in ReLIFE-Wiki, ReLIFE-open-data-set-data-collection (March 2026)
Authors And Reviewers
This page was written by Francesca Conselvan (e-think) and Nikolaus Diez (EEG - TU Wien). This page was reviewed by Simon Pezzutto (EURAC) and Patrick Thöni (EURAC).
License
Copyright © 2026-2029: Francesca Conselvan and Nikolaus Diez
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 International License.
SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
License-Text: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html
Acknowledgement
We would like to convey our deepest appreciation to the LIFE ReLIFE Project (Grant Agreement number 101167067), which provided the funding to carry out the present investigation.