Applied Buildings and Energy Research Group (ABERG)

ABERG is a virtual research group established at the University of Salford to address issues of energy use in buildings. The focus is practical and as such covers issues ranging from monitoring energy demand, people and designing and delivering effective solutions to improve the performance of our buildings.

Real world problems cannot be solved from one perspective. ABERG members are drawn from Built Environment, Computing, Science and Engineering and Environmental and Life Sciences Schools. This brings academics from diverse field such as psychology, engineering, computing and construction management, to consider problems as they are in the field.

ABERG looks to support and embed solutions in industry and communities. As such, it has a wide variety of partners including product manufacturers, installers, social housing providers, local authorities, academics and policy makers. These links are not only for dissemination, but are an essential part of understanding the problem, shaping research and embedding solutions in practice.

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Aims of the Research Group

The vision of the Group is:

“An inter-disciplinary, evidence-led research team to support the delivery of a reduction in the end use energy demand of buildings.”

This vision leads to the development of a number of key aims:

• Support the development of effective data collection and monitoring approaches to assess the energy performance of buildings.
  Collect evidence with regards to the performance of buildings in terms of their fabric and systems performance.
• Collect evidence with regards to the influence of human behaviours and the impact on adoption of building improvements and the influence on end use energy demand.
• Collect evidence with regards to the implementation of sustainable building refurbishment.
• Work with relevant stakeholders to develop practical solutions to improve the performance of buildings as driven by the evidence.