Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework 2020
Source: environment.data.gov.uk (2025-08-21)

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED). The National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework was set up to provide a better understanding of energy use and intensity in domestic and non-domestic buildings.

These documents provide data on non-domestic energy use.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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The Non-Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework
2020 (England and Wales)
20th November 2020
Official Statistics

This report summarises analysis of the non-domestic building stock and non-domestic building
energy consumption in England and Wales using the latest version of the Non-Domestic
National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED).
What you need to know about these statistics

The statistics in ND-NEED cover non-domestic buildings in England and Wales, under
the ND-NEED definition.

Information on the non-domestic building stock (building number, building use, building
size) reflects the position at the end of March 2020. Information on energy consumption
covers 2016-2018, and comprises electricity and gas consumed via the public distribution
system (onsite generated electricity consumption is not included).

The key results are:
• Under the ND-NEED definition, there are 1,656,000 non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales (end of March 2020). The top three uses of non-domestic buildings are
Shops (29%), Offices (20%) and Factories (14%).

• The total energy consumption of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales is 293
TWh (2018).

• The three building uses that consume the most energy are Factories (34%), Other
(15%) and Offices (10%) (2018).

• The building use that has the highest energy intensity is Hospitality (2018).
A summary of the key results in this publication can be found in Figure 1.
Further detail including a breakdown of non-domestic building stock by building use and
building size, and a breakdown of electricity consumption/intensity and gas
consumption/intensity by building use, building size and occupying business size can be found
in the results section of the report.

Responsible statistician: Maya Fooks Media enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx
Email: xxx@xxx.xx Statistical enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Figure 1: A summary of the key results from ND-NEED1.

*All ND-NEED non-domestic building stock figures are the position at the end of March 2020.
1The non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption figures in ND-NEED differs from
the figures in other statistical publications such as the subnational statistics and ECUK. More
information on the reasons for these differences can be found in the methodology.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Contents
Contents __________________________________________________________________ 3
1.Introduction ______________________________________________________________ 5
What questions can be answered by ND-NEED? _________________________________ 6
What questions cannot be answered by ND-NEED? ______________________________ 6
2.Results _________________________________________________________________ 7
England and Wales non-domestic building stock _________________________________ 7
Number of non-domestic buildings by building use ______________________________ 8
Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building use ____________________________ 9
Number of non-domestic buildings by building size ____________________________ 11
Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building size ___________________________ 12
England and Wales non-domestic building energy consumption ____________________ 13
Non-domestic electricity consumption by building use __________________________ 14
Non-domestic gas consumption by building use _______________________________ 16
Non-domestic electricity consumption by business size _________________________ 17
Non-domestic gas consumption by business size ______________________________ 19
Non-domestic electricity consumption by building size __________________________ 20
Non-domestic gas consumption by building size ______________________________ 22
How has energy consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time? __________ 23
How has electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time? ______ 23
How has gas consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time? __________ 24
3.Methodology ____________________________________________________________ 25
ND-NEED building stock ___________________________________________________ 25
Converting NDR/SMV hereditaments to ND-NEED building stock dataset ___________ 25
Energy consumption ______________________________________________________ 26
Matching the ND-NEED building stock and energy consumption data ______________ 27
Matching the ND-NEED sample and Experian data ____________________________ 27
Weighting ______________________________________________________________ 28
Building weighting ______________________________________________________ 29
Energy weighting ______________________________________________________ 29
Removing non-buildings ___________________________________________________ 31
Comparing the results in ND-NEED to comparable figures from other publications ______ 33
Current limitations of ND-NEED _____________________________________________ 35
Accompanying tables _____________________________________________________ 37
Related statistics ________________________________________________________ 38

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Revisions policy _________________________________________________________ 38
User engagement ________________________________________________________ 38
Contact ________________________________________________________________ 38
4.Annex A: Address matching ________________________________________________ 39
5.Annex B: Building use categories ____________________________________________ 40
6.Annex C: Changes since the 2015 publication __________________________________ 41
7.Annex D: Removing inaccurate floor area data __________________________________ 42
8.Annex E: Detailed breakdown of the ND-NEED sample ___________________________ 44

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1.Introduction
The Non-Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED) provides
an insight into the electricity and gas consumption of non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales in 2018, and how this has changed since 2016. It also provides information
on the non-domestic building stock in England and Wales – under the ND-NEED
definition - with a breakdown of non-domestic buildings by building use and building
size.
ND-NEED is based on the Valuation Office Agency (VOA)’s list of all non-domestic premises
(“hereditaments”) in England and Wales (the non-domestic ratings list (NDR)) and the VOA’s
summary valuation data (SMV) which contains information on the premises’ use and size. ND-
NEED uses the position of the 2017 NDR/SMV as at the end of March 2020. BEIS have been
given access to this data via a legal gateway (specified in an information sharing agreement),
and securely receives this data directly from the VOA.
In ND-NEED, the NDR/SMV data are aggregated to the building level and used, following
further processing, to provide information about the number, use and floor area of buildings in
the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock. As the NDR and SMV cover all non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales, these datasets cover all of the 1,656,000 buildings included in
the ND-NEED non-domestic building population.
The non-domestic building stock is matched to information on electricity and gas consumption
(2016-18), at meter point level, held by BEIS. This gives a large sample of 726,000 non-
domestic buildings with electricity consumption data and 287,000 non-domestic buildings with
gas consumption data. This sample is then matched to business characteristics data (from
Experian) to provide information on the size of the business occupying a building.
The matched dataset can then be used to analyse the electricity/gas consumption of non-
domestic buildings from a large sample size. The sample contains information on building use,
occupying business size (for those successfully matched to Experian) and building size, so the
consumption data can be disaggregated by these characteristics. The resulting consumption
data for the sample are then weighted to be representative of the population level.
More information about producing the ND-NEED sample and the weighting process can be
found in the methodology. The key limitations of the ND-NEED methodology, and a discussion
of the impact of these limitations on the ND-NEED results, can be found in the limitations
section.
This is the first update to ND-NEED since its original publication in March 20152. The next
update to ND-NEED is currently planned for the summer of 2021.

2Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework: energy statistics 2006-12
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/non-domestic-national-energy-efficiency-data
framework-energy-statistics-2006-12

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What questions can be answered by ND-NEED?
• How many non-domestic buildings are there in England and Wales?
• How many non-domestic buildings are there in England and Wales of a particular
building use or building size?
• How does non-domestic electricity/gas consumption/intensity change by building use,
occupying business size, or building size?
• What is the total electricity/gas meter consumption of non-domestic buildings and how
has this changed over time (2016-2018)?
What questions cannot be answered by ND-NEED?
• What are the characteristics of the non-domestic building stock in Scotland and
Northern Ireland?
• What is the electricity/gas consumption/intensity of non-domestic buildings in Scotland
and Northern Ireland?
• What are non-domestic buildings using their energy for (e.g. is energy used for
heating/lighting/industrial processes etc.)?
• How much of other fuels (e.g. biomass/LPG/oil) do non-domestic buildings consume?
• How much energy generated onsite is consumed by non-domestic buildings?
• How does non-domestic building energy use differ between rented/owner-occupied
buildings?
Further information related to these questions can be found in Energy Consumption in the UK3
(ECUK) and the Building Energy Efficiency Survey4 (BEES).

3ECUK - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

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2.Results
England and Wales non-domestic building stock
In ND-NEED a building is defined as a property that has a unique property reference
number (UPRN). In general, each building has a distinct UPRN, so the information
presented in ND-NEED can be considered to be at the building level.
There are however a few exceptions to this. Where a single physical structure contains
multiple properties with UPRNs e.g. a shopping centre containing multiple shops each
with distinct UPRNs, then this is considered to be multiple buildings in ND-NEED.
The key limitations of the ND-NEED methodology and a discussion about their impact on the
ND-NEED results can be found in the limitations section.
Under the ND-NEED definition, there were 1,656,000 non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales at the end of March 2020.
There are some building types that are not covered by the ND-NEED
figures. These are:
• Agricultural Buildings, Places of Worship and Prisons as these
are not included in the VOA’s list of non-domestic properties
(the NDR) that ND-NEED is based on. It is estimated these
building types make up 4% of non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales5.
• Caravan Parks, Advertising Premises6, Car Parks, Beach Huts,
Quarries, and Telecoms7. These are included in the NDR but are
not considered to be buildings in ND-NEED and so are excluded.
The exclusion of these ‘non-buildings’ from ND-NEED reduces
the number of buildings in the stock by 8%.

5Figures based on the UCL Carb model, UCL’s non-domestic energy use model which
provides estimates of total number of buildings for different building types.
6Places uses for advertisement e.g. roundabout adverts, bus shelter adverts, advertising
banners.
7Places used for communication e.g. communication stations, public telephones, wifi
infrastructure.
Figure 2: The number of
ND-NEED non-domestic
buildings in England and
Wales

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Number of non-domestic buildings by building use
According to the definition of a building in ND-NEED, within a single building there may be
several building uses. Where this is the case, the building use is assigned to that of the
component premises (“hereditament”) that has the largest floor area.
This will have a distorting effect on the building stock figures as uses that often occur as the
smaller use (by floor area) in mixed used buildings will be underestimated. However, as only
3% of buildings in the ND-NEED building stock contain multiple hereditaments the impact of
this distortion on the building stock figures presented in ND-NEED is likely to be negligible.
The breakdown of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building use can be seen
in Figure 3. See Annex B for definitions of the categories used.
Figure 3: The number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building
use (as at end of March 2020).

*ACL is an abbreviation for Arts, Community and Leisure
Shops are the largest building use category with 476,000 buildings (29% of non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales). The next largest category is Offices with 335,000 buildings
(20% of all non-domestic buildings in England and Wales), then Factories with 227,000 (14%
of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales).

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Note, the building use categories in this version of ND NEED are not the same as those
used in the March 2015 version2.

The categories have been changed so that they align as far as possible with the
categories used in BEIS’s Energy Consumption in the UK (ECUK)3 publication, as well as
the 2015 Business Energy Efficiency Survey (BEES)4 and to reduce the previously
substantial size of consumption in the ‘Other’ category.

In the March 2015 publication, there were six categories: Factories, Offices, Restaurants,
Shops, Warehouses and Other. The Other category was responsible for 40% of energy
consumption in 2012 (the latest year covered by the 2015 version of ND-NEED).
In this version of ND-NEED there are ten categories: Arts, Community and Leisure; Education;
Emergency Services; Factories; Health; Hospitality; Offices; Shops; Warehouses and Other.
The Other category is responsible for 15% of energy consumption in 2018.
More information about what is included in each building use category can be found in Annex
B.
Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building use
The combined floor area of all non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED for which floor area
information is available is 592,228,000 m2 (see Table 1).
Of the 1,656,000 buildings in ND-NEED, 288,000 (17%) do not have floor area information.
Because of this, all floor area information presented here should be treated with caution as it is
likely to be an underestimate.
The three reasons that buildings may be missing floor area information are:
• Some non-domestic buildings do not have floor area information available in the SMV
data.
• If a hereditament in a non-domestic building has a floor area of less than 15m2 in the
SMV it is treated as having no floor area information in ND-NEED.
• If non-domestic buildings fall into a building use category where floor area data does not
inform the VOA rating, then it is treated as having no floor area data in ND-NEED. This
means that there are some distortions in the floor area by building use figures, as some
building uses will have more floor area information excluded than others. However, this
distortion is likely to be small because the excluded building use categories are very
diverse and include buildings in all building use categories. For more information on
which business use categories have their floor area data removed and why see Annex
D.
2Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework: energy statistics 2006-12 -
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/non-domestic-national-energy-efficiency-data
framework-energy-statistics-2006-12
3ECUK - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

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Table 1: The total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building use (as at end of March 2020).

From Table 1, we can see that Warehouses are the building use which occupies the largest
floor area, with a third of non-domestic floor area. This is followed by Factories, occupying a
quarter of non-domestic floor area, and Shops occupying 16%.
We can also compare the number of buildings in a building use category and the floor area that
the building use category occupies. From Figure 4, we can see that for several sectors there
are substantial differences in the share of building use between the two measures.
Both Warehouses and Factories occupy a greater proportion of non-domestic floor area than
their share of the total number of non-domestic buildings. This is because these building uses
generally occupy large sites. For all other building use sectors the proportion of the total
number of non-domestic buildings that they occupy is larger than their share of the non-
domestic floor area.
Note, the proportions presented are only based on the non-domestic buildings where
floor area information is available. They therefore implicitly assume that the building size
distribution of the buildings that are missing building size information is the same as that
of those with this information.

Building type
Total floor area (m2)
Proportion of total floor
area
Arts, Community and Leisure
14,634,000
2%
Education
3,619,000
1%
Emergency Services
160,000
0%
Factories
148,466,000
25%
Health
2,348,000
0%
Hospitality
12,591,000
2%
Offices
76,158,000
13%
Shops
97,104,000
16%
Warehouses
192,710,000
33%
Other
44,438,000
8%
Total
592,228,000
100%

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Figure 4: The share of ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building use
(as at end of March 2020).

Number of non-domestic buildings by building size
The breakdown of the number of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building
size can be seen in Figure 5.
Figure 5: The number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building
size (as at end of March 2020).

The general trend is that as building size increases, the number of non-domestic buildings
decreases. This is true even though the building size categories used in ND-NEED are wider
for larger business sizes.
Almost 75% of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales (for which floor area information
is available) have a floor area of less than 250m2, and more than 90% have a floor area of less
than 1,000m2.
Note, because 288,000 (17%) of non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED are missing building size
information, the number of buildings in each size category is likely to be an underestimate as
some buildings in the missing category will fall into them as well.

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Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building size
The total floor area of non-domestic buildings in each floor area band is given in Table 2. This
shows that larger buildings occupy a greater proportion of non-domestic floor area than smaller
buildings. This is despite there being fewer larger buildings in the non-domestic building stock.
The difference between the building number and total floor area trends by building size can be
seen in Figure 6.
Note, the proportions presented are only based on the non-domestic buildings where
floor area information is available. They therefore implicitly assume that the building size
distribution of the buildings that are missing building size information is the same as that
of those with this information.

Table 2: The total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building size (as at end of March 2020).
Building size
Total floor area (m2)
Proportion of total floor area
0 - 50m2
9,667,000
2%
>50 - 100m2
24,489,000
4%
>100 - 250m2
58,713,000
10%
>250 - 500m2
60,610,000
10%
>500 – 1000m2
65,854,000
11%
>1000m2 – 5000m2
162,464,000
27%
>5000 m2
210,431,000
36%
Total
592,228,000
100%

Figure 6: The share of ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building size
(as at end of March 2020).

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England and Wales non-domestic building energy consumption
According to ND-NEED, in total non-domestic buildings in England and Wales used 140 TWh
of electricity and 153 TWh of gas in 2018 (the most recent year for which data are available).
These consumption figures are based on a sample of the ND-NEED building stock that was
successfully matched to electricity and gas meter-point data (gas consumption figures are
temperature corrected). This sample is then weighted to be representative at the population
level.
More information about the weighting process in ND-NEED can be found in the methodology.
As business size information is only available for the sample and not for the whole
building population, the weighting does not account for potential differences between the
size of businesses in the sample and the size of businesses in the population. This
means there is more uncertainty around whether the energy consumption figures by
business size are representative of the population, than for the consumption figures by
building use or by floor area.

Because the consumption figures are based on meter-point data, any energy consumed that is
not via the electricity or gas grid e.g. energy generated onsite from renewables, is not included.
According to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES)8 89% of non-domestic building
electricity consumption was from the grid in 2018.
The fact that ND-NEED is based on meter-point data also means that the consumption figures
cover all grid energy consumed by a non-domestic building, regardless of end-use e.g.
heating, lighting, industrial processes etc. This is different from some other publications such
as BEES4 which only cover energy consumed by the building itself e.g. heating, lighting, but
not energy consumed by activities within the building e.g. industrial processes.

8DUKES, Table 5.2, Sectors: Industry, Commercial, Public administration. Public Distribution
System as a share of Total Consumption - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-
chapter-5-digest-of-united-kingdom-energy-statistics-dukes
4BEES - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

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Non-domestic electricity consumption by building use
Electricity consumption
Figure 7: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building use, 2018.

Figure 7 shows non-domestic building electricity consumption by building use. It shows that
Factories are the building use that consumes the most electricity (44 TWh in 2018). This is
more than twice the consumption of any other building use.
This is despite there being more Shops (476,000) and Offices (335,000) than there are
Factories (227,000) in England and Wales. This suggests that the high electricity consumption
in Factories is driven by the relatively large size of their buildings (Factories occupy more floor
area than either Shops or Offices) and/or that Factories are carrying out processes that have
high electricity demands.
The high electricity demands of Factory processes can be seen in ECUK3 which shows that
more than half of the electricity used in Industry is for industrial processes e.g. motors, high
temperature processes, low temperature processes.
Electricity intensity
The level of energy consumption in a building use category is in part driven by the number and
size of buildings of that type. To control for this, energy intensity can be used. Energy intensity
is the average amount of energy used in a square metre of a building. Differences in energy
intensity between sectors are therefore not affected by differences in the number or size of
buildings.
The electricity intensity figures presented in ND-NEED are the median electricity intensity,
weighted by the energy weight (for more information on the energy weight see the
methodology).

3ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U2 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk

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Energy intensity is influenced by both the energy consumption and floor area of a building.
However, the weighting only accounts for the energy consumption. If the floor area of
buildings with similar consumption values differs between the sample and the population this
will not be accounted for in the current weighting.

Figure 8 shows that Hospitality is the building use with the highest electricity intensity. This is
partly driven by the high electricity demands of catering activities, which can be seen in other
publications that split energy consumption by end-use (ECUK3 and BEES4).
Factories have a relatively low electricity intensity which suggests the high electricity demands
of the industrial processes many Factories carry out, are counterbalanced by the large size of
these sites.
Figure 8: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building use, 2018.

3ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES, Overarching tables, Figure 3.12 -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Non-domestic gas consumption by building use
Gas consumption
Figure 9: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building use, 2018.

Figure 9 shows that the pattern for gas consumption by building use is similar to that of
electricity consumption. Factories have the highest gas consumption, consuming 57 TWh in
2018. This is more than four times higher than the gas consumption for any other building use
(excluding the ‘Other’ category). This is despite that fact that Factories are not the largest
building use category in terms of building numbers.
The high gas consumption of Factories is in part driven by their large size and in part by the
highly gas consuming processes they carry out:
• Factories account for 14% of non-domestic buildings, but 25% of non-domestic building
floor area (of the buildings with floor area information available).
• From ECUK4 we can see that industrial processes e.g. high and low temperature
processes, drying/separation, are responsible for more than half of gas use in industry,
and so a large part of gas consumption in Factories is likely driven by these processes.
Most other building types consumed around 10 TWh of gas in 2018. The exceptions to this are
Arts, Community and Leisure where the buildings consumed 6 TWh of gas, and Emergency
Services where the buildings consumed 1 TWh of gas (due to low building numbers (4,000)
and small floor area (160,000m2)).

3ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U2 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Gas intensity
Figure 10: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales
by building use, 2018.

Hospitality is the building use category with the highest gas intensity (343 kWh/m2), consuming
almost twice as much gas per square meter as any other building type. This is partly due to the
high gas demands of catering activities, which can be seen in other publications that split
energy consumption by end-use (ECUK3 and BEES4).
Most other building use categories have a gas intensity of around 160 kWh/m2. The exceptions
to this are the ‘Other’ category with 109 kWh/m2 and Factories and Warehouses with around
60 kWh/m2.
Non-domestic electricity consumption by business size
A Micro business has less than 10 employees, a Small business has 10 - 49 employees,
a Medium business has 50 - 249 employees, a Large business has 250 - 999 employees
and a Very Large business has 1,000 employees or more.
Note, the number of employees refers to the number of employees employed by the
business as a whole, not just the employees that work in the building. This means that
small branches of larger businesses e.g. a corner shop that is part of a national chain, will
be in the larger categories. This is because information on the number of employees in a
particular building is not available from Experian.

3ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES, Overarching tables, Figure 3.13 -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Electricity consumption
Figure 11: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by business size, 2018.

Figure 11 shows the contribution of business of different sizes to non-domestic building
electricity consumption.
If the occupying business is Very Large (1,000 employees or more) electricity consumption
tends to be higher, with buildings occupied by Very Large business consuming 50% more
electricity than buildings occupied by another business size (excluding the missing category).
Note, 52 TWh of electricity consumption is missing business size information. This is the
electricity consumption of the 357,000 buildings of the 726,000 in the ND-NEED electricity
consumption sample where information on the occupying business size is not available. In ND-
NEED the business size information comes from the Experian business characteristics dataset
which is matched onto the non-domestic buildings and energy consumption data. There are
two reasons why business size information may not be available:
• The Experian dataset may not contain business size information for a building. This is
responsible for 43 TWh of the 52 TWh of consumption from buildings that are missing
business size information.
• The Experian dataset may contain business size information, but this cannot be
successfully matched to the corresponding building due to the limitations of the
matching process. This is responsible for 9 TWh of the 52 TWh of consumption from
buildings that are missing business size information.
Because of the substantial size of the ‘Business size missing’ consumption category, the
consumption figures for other categories e.g. Micro, Small etc. should be used with caution as
they are likely to be underestimates (as some of the consumption in the ‘Business size
missing’ category should be in those categories).

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Electricity intensity
Figure 12: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by business size, 2018.

Electricity intensity shows a much stronger trend by business size than electricity consumption.
Electricity intensity increases as the occupying building size increases.
Non-domestic gas consumption by business size
Gas consumption
Figure 13: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
business size, 2018.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Gas consumption does not seem to vary with business size, with all businesses size
categories (excluding missing) consuming between 15 TWh and 25 TWh in 2018.
It is important to note the substantial consumption of 52 TWh from the ‘Business size missing’
category. This is because 126,000 of the 287,000 buildings in the ND-NEED gas consumption
sample are missing business size information. Because of this, the consumption figures for
each business size category are likely to be underestimates (as some consumption from
buildings that are missing business size information is likely to fall into each category).
Gas intensity
Figure 14: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales
by business size, 2018.

Smaller businesses have the highest gas intensity, with gas intensity decreasing as the
number of employees increases. This is the opposite pattern than is seen for electricity
intensity.
Non-domestic electricity consumption by building size
Electricity consumption
Figure 15: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building size, 2018.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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There is a clear trend that as building size increases the electricity consumption increases.
This is particularly true for buildings that are over 1,000m2.
This trend is not driven by the number of buildings as there are more buildings in the smaller
floor area categories than there are in the larger ones (see Figure 5 and Figure 6).
Instead this trend is at least partly driven by the floor area of buildings in these categories. The
total floor area has a similar pattern to the electricity consumption figures with a greater floor
area in the larger floor area bands.
As with business size above there is a substantial proportion of non-domestic buildings in ND-
NEED that are missing building size information. Of the 726,000 buildings in the ND-NEED
electricity consumption sample, 113,000 are missing this information. These buildings are
responsible for 50 TWh of electricity consumption.
This means figures on the electricity consumption of a particular building size should be used
with caution as they are likely to be an underestimate.
Electricity intensity
Figure 16: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building size, 2018.

Electricity intensity shows the opposite trend to electricity consumption with smaller buildings
using more electricity per square foot than larger buildings.

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Non-domestic gas consumption by building size
Gas consumption
Figure 17: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building size, 2018.

As with electricity consumption, gas consumption tends to increase as building size increases.
Again, this trend is at least in part driven by the larger total floor area of the buildings in the
larger floor area bands.
It is important to note the substantial size of the ‘Building size missing’ category which makes
up 75 TWh (49%) of consumption, more than any other building size category. This
consumption comes from the 59,000 buildings in the 287,000 buildings in the ND-NEED gas
consumption sample that are missing building size information. The size of the missing
category means that that the consumption figures for each building size category are likely to
be underestimates, and so should be used with caution.
Gas intensity
Figure 18: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales
by building size, 2018.

Gas intensity shows the opposite trend to gas consumption with smaller buildings using more
gas per square metre. This is the same trend that is seen in the electricity intensity data.

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How has energy consumption in non-domestic buildings
changed over time?
ND-NEED can also provide information on the electricity and gas consumption over time,
which can be disaggregated by building use.
In this update we have presented estimates only for the last three years. This is for several
reasons:
1. The latest building stock figures, based on the position of the 2017 NDR as at March
2020, does not include sites that have closed (or no longer attract business rates, for
example, if converted to domestic use).
2. Similarly, we also believe the meter data may not cover sites that closed before the
latest year.
3. The existing weighting method uses a constant weight across the time series. This is
based on the last three years, and may not sufficiently compensate for #1 and #2 above
for years prior.
The combination of these three factors means that the weighted consumption figures for earlier
years may be under-estimated, with the impact increasing the further back we go. We are
planning to review the above (and the scale of the impact), and hope to provide a longer-series
in the next edition.
How has electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time?
Figure 19: Electricity consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales,
by building use (2016-18).

*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure
Figure 19 shows that, according to ND-NEED, electricity consumption in non-domestic
buildings has remained broadly stable between 2016 – 2018, rising from 137 TWh in 2016 to
140 TWh in 2018.
This stability in consumption is seen in all on ND-NEED sectors.

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The overall trend in Figure 19 is broadly consistent with comparable trends in the subnational
electricity consumption statistics9 and DUKES8.
How has gas consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time?
Figure 20: Gas consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales, 2016-
18.

*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure
Note, the gas consumption figures in ND-NEED are temperature adjusted so any
temperature differences between years will not influence the ND-NEED gas consumption
trend.

Figure 20 shows that, according to ND-NEED, gas consumption in non-domestic building
gradually increased between 2016 and 2018, from 147 TWh in 2016 to 153 TWh in 2018. This
is consistent with the trend seen in the subnational gas consumption statistics10 and DUKES11
which both show a slight increase in gas consumption over this period. We can see that this
slight increase in overall gas consumption is driven by a slight increase in consumption across
all building uses, rather than one particular sector.

9Subnational electricity consumption figures - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-
sets/regional-and-local-authority-electricity-consumption-statistics
8Dukes, Table 5.2, Sectors: Industry, Commercial, Public administration -
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-chapter-5-digest-of-united-kingdom-
energy-statistics-dukes
10Sub-national gas consumption statistics - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sub-
national-gas-consumption-data
11DUKES, Table 4.2, Sectors: industrial, commercial, public admin and misc –
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/natural-gas-chapter-4-digest-of-united-kingdom-
energy-statistics-dukes

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3.Methodology
ND-NEED building stock
To calculate the building stock figures in ND-NEED, the 2017 version of the VOA’s non-
domestic ratings list (NDR) and the VOA’s summary valuation data (SMV), as at the end of
March 2020, are used.
This data is collected by the VOA as part of their business rate calculations. Almost all
properties that are not used for domestic purposes are valued for business rates and so are
included in the NDR.
There are however a few non-domestic building uses that are exempt from business rates.
These are not included in the NDR and so are also not covered by ND-NEED. Non-domestic
buildings that are exempt from building rates include agricultural buildings and places of
worship.
The NDR and SMV contain information on the number of non-domestic hereditaments in
England and Wales, the size of these and their use. A hereditament can be a building, but
there can also be multiple hereditaments within a single building.
Each hereditament in the NDR/SMV has a unique address reference number (UARN). Each
hereditament also has a unique property reference number (UPRN), which is a unique building
reference. Two hereditaments in the same building will have different UARN’s but the same
UPRN.
Converting NDR/SMV hereditaments to ND-NEED building stock dataset
Before analysis of the NDR/SMV data can be carried out, any hereditaments which do not
have a UPRN or that have a null rateable value are removed. This takes the number of
hereditaments in the dataset from 2,105,000 to 1,915,000.
The 1,915,000 remaining hereditaments must then be aggregated to the building (UPRN) level,
which results in 1,798,000 unique UPRNs.
Table 3: Single versus multiple hereditaments in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales (end of March 2020).
Number of hereditaments in a building
Number of buildings (UPRNs)
Building (UPRN) containing a single
hereditament (UARN)
1,751,000
Building (UPRN) containing multiple
hereditaments (UARN)
47,000

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To determine the floor area of buildings containing multiple hereditaments, the floor area of the
hereditaments within it are summed. If a hereditament has a floor area of less than 15m2 this is
not included in the building floor area as this floor area data is thought to be unreliable for the
purposes of ND-NEED, as it results in some extremely high energy intensity values.
The NDR/SMV also contain hereditament floor area information for some building uses for
which this floor area information is thought to be unreliable for the purposes of ND-NEED as
the floor area does not inform the business rating. The floor area for these building uses is
therefore removed. A list of the building uses which have their floor area information removed
can be found in Annex D.
If a building contains hereditaments with multiple building uses, the building use of the
hereditament with the largest floor area is taken to be that for the building.
Once the NDR/SMV data has been aggregated to the building level there is some further
processing before the building use analysis is carried out.
The NDR/SMV contain some building uses which are not considered to be non-domestic
buildings for the purposes of ND-NEED. These ‘non-buildings’ are removed before the building
stock figures are calculated. The building types that are removed are: Caravan Parks,
Advertising Rights and Premises, Car Parks, Beach Huts, Quarries and Telecoms. The
removal of the ‘non-buildings’ takes the number of buildings from 1,798,000 to 1,656,000.
The data can then be used to provide information on the building number, use and size of the
ND-NEED non-domestic building stock in England and Wales.
Figure 21: The key steps from the NDR/SMV data from the VOA to the ND-NEED building stock
population.

Energy consumption
To calculate the non-domestic energy consumption figures in ND-NEED, the list of non-
domestic buildings in England and Wales with building use and building size information is
matched with energy consumption data (at the meter-point level) held by BEIS and business
size data from Experian. This creates a sample of non-domestic buildings with energy
consumption and building/business characteristic information. This sample is then weighted to
scale the results up to the population level.

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Note that all 1,798,000 buildings are matched to the energy consumption data (including non-
buildings).
The gas consumption meter data is temperature corrected so ND-NEED gas consumption
figures are all temperature corrected.
The reason non-buildings are not removed before matching is that some of the energy
consumption in the consumption data is thought to come from non-buildings. Therefore, if the
non-buildings were removed before matching, the energy consumption for non-domestic
buildings (excluding non-buildings) would be artificially high as it would be scaled up to
population figures that include non-building consumption.
To prevent this the non-buildings are matched to the energy consumption data and included
when the weights are calculated to scale the sample up to the population. After the weights
have been calculated the non-buildings are removed.
Matching the ND-NEED building stock and energy consumption data
The 1,798,000 buildings in the ND-NEED building stock and the energy consumption data do
not share a common unique identifier. Therefore, to match the datasets together address
matching is used.
Address matching is when two addresses from different datasets are deemed to correspond to
the same property. Address matching of non-domestic buildings can be difficult as non-
domestic addresses are often complex. For example, a non-domestic building may occupy a
range of building numbers or list the company name in the address. More information about
the address-matching process in ND-NEED can be found in Annex A.
Using address matching just over 40% of buildings in the ND-NEED stock (733,000 buildings)
were successfully matched to electricity meter data. Of these 733,000 buildings, 288,000 were
also successfully matched to gas consumption meter data. This reduced sample size is also in
part due to much less of the building stock having a gas connection.
Note, this means all analysis on gas consumption/gas intensity in ND-NEED is based on
a smaller sample size than similar analysis on electricity consumption/electricity intensity.

Matching the ND-NEED sample and Experian data
The buildings that have successfully matched to the meter data (the ND-NEED sample) are
then matched to the Experian business characteristics dataset. This dataset contains
information about the number of employees of the business occupying the building.
Both ND-NEED sample and the Experian dataset contain a UPRN field and this is used to
match these datasets together.
Just over 50% of business in the ND-NEED sample successfully match to the Experian data.
Note, the Experian business characteristics dataset is a bespoke dataset that BEIS
receives from Experian.

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Figure 22: The key steps from the ND-NEED buildings stock to the ND-NEED electricity and gas
sample matched to the Experian dataset.

Weighting
As not all non-domestic buildings can be matched to energy use data, weights are used to
scale up the ND-NEED sample to population. Weighting is used to ensure the results from ND-
NEED are as representative of the non-domestic building population as possible.
As there is not a dataset that contains all non-domestic buildings and all non-domestic building
electricity/gas consumption, this weighting takes place in two stages (the building weight and
the energy weight).
Note, for the weighted sample figures to be representative of the population, the weighting
must account for the key characteristics that could influence energy consumption. For
example, if there are disproportionately fewer factories in the sample compared their frequency
in the population, the factory consumption in the sample should be weighted to account for
this.
Both building use and floor area are used to inform the weighting, so the ND-NEED
consumption figures should be representative for these characteristics.
It should be noted however that where floor area information is missing the weighting is
less effective as buildings missing floor area in the sample will be weighted up to
buildings missing floor area in the population, even though the actual floor sizes of
buildings in these groups might differ substantially. For this reason, there is more
uncertainty around the ND-NEED consumption figures by floor area than by building use
(where there is no missing information).

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Building weighting
The building weights scale up the number of buildings in the ND-NEED sample to the number
of buildings in the ND-NEED building population.
To account for biases in the ND-NEED sample the building weights are constructed based on
building type and building size. A single building weight is calculated for each building in the
ND-NEED sample.
The building population and sample are stratified into 35 building uses and 17 floor area bands
to form a matrix. A few of the building types have too few counts in either the population or the
sample to be stratified into an area band (a count of below 40 was used as the minimum cut-
off). In these cases, two or more area bands were merged (in both the population and the
sample).
For each cell in the matrix, the population count is divided by the sample count. For example, if
there were 1,000 cinemas with a floor area of >500 – 1,000m2 in the population, and 500
cinemas with a floor area of >500 – 1,000m2 in the population these buildings would be
assigned a building weight of 2.
It is not possible to include occupying business size in this weighting process as information on
occupying business size is only available for buildings in the sample, not for the whole
population.
Energy weighting
The next stage of the weighting process is to calculate the energy weights. The energy weights
scale up the energy meters in the ND-NEED sample to match the number of energy meters in
the non-domestic meter population. The weights for electricity meters and gas meters are
calculated separately.
The non-domestic meter population contains some building uses that are not covered by ND-
NEED. These are agricultural buildings, place of worship and prisons. The meters associated
with these building uses are therefore excluded from non-domestic meter population before the
energy weights are calculated.

To do this, a profile for each of the excluded building types was created from the meter data.
Each of these building types were then grossed up to an estimated population from the
Experian data or the UCL Carb model12. The resulting population of these building types was
then removed from the total population of all consumption meters. For example, 5% of prisons
(10 prisons) are profile class 6 and in consumption band 7, therefore 10 meters of profile class
6 and consumption band 7 are removed from the meter population, before the consumption
data is grossed up to the population.

12The UCL Carb model is UCL’s non-domestic energy use model which provides estimates of
total number of buildings for different building types.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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Electricity weight
The population for the electricity weight is all the non-domestic electricity meters in the sub-
national consumption statistics (profile class of 3 – 9)13, and any other electricity meters that
match to a building in the ND-NEED building stock dataset. The sample is the number of
electricity meters in the ND-NEED sample multiplied by their building weight.

To account for biases in the ND-NEED sample the electricity weights are constructed based on
their average electricity consumption in 2016 - 2018 and meter profile class. The population
and sample of meters is stratified into 17 consumption bands and into seven profile classes to
form a matrix. For each cell in the matrix, the ratio of population count to sample count is
calculated. Any meters in the sample with a profile class of 1 or 2 are given a weighting of
one, as any further meters of these profiles would be expected to be domestic, so should not
be scaled.

If a building has multiple meters the total consumption for the building is divided by the number
of meters and assigned the resulting consumption band.

For each combination of consumption band/profile, a single electricity weight is calculated, as
the population to sample ratio, averaged over the last three years (2016-2018). This is then
applied to all years of electricity consumption, for each building in the sample, in the
corresponding band.

Gas weight
The population for the gas weight is all of the non-domestic gas meters in the sub-national
consumption statistics11 (meters than consume more than 73,200 kWh a year), and any other
gas meters that match to a building in the ND-NEED building stock dataset. The sample for the
gas weight is the gas meters in the ND-NEED sample multiplied by their building weights.

To account for biases in the ND-NEED sample the gas weights are constructed based on their
average gas consumption in 2016 - 2018. The population and sample of meters is stratified
into 17 consumption bands. For each cell in the matrix, the ratio of population count to sample
count is calculated. As for electricity, any gas meters with a consumption of less than 73,200
kWh a year are given a gas weight of one, since any further meters would be expected to be
domestic, so should not be scaled.
If a building has multiple meters the total consumption for the building is divided by the number
of meters and assigned the resulting consumption band.

For each consumption band, a single gas weight is calculated, as the population to sample
ratio, averaged over the last three years (2016-2018). This is then applied to all years of gas
consumption, for each building in the sample, in the corresponding band.

13Electricity meters are labelled with a profile class. A profile class of 1 or 2 indicates a
domestic property. A profile class of 3-9 indicates a non-domestic property.
11Sub-national gas consumption statistics - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sub-
national-gas-consumption-data

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Removing non-buildings
Once the electricity and gas weights have been calculated the buildings that were originally
included in the ND-NEED electricity/gas consumption sample, but that are not considered to be
non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED (‘non-buildings’), are removed. The buildings that are
removed are: Caravan Parks, Advertising Right and Premises, Car Parks, Beach Huts,
Quarries and Telecoms.
The removal of these ‘non-buildings’ reduces the size of the ND-NEED electricity consumption
sample from 733,000 buildings to 726,000 buildings, and the size of the gas consumption
sample from 288,000 buildings to 287,000 buildings.
Figure 23: The removal of non-buildings from the ND-NEED electricity and gas consumption
samples.

The removal of non-buildings from the sample also removes the energy consumption
associated with these non-buildings from the ND-NEED consumption figures (see Table 4).
Table 4: Electricity and gas consumption for non-buildings in England and Wales.
Year
Electricity consumption (TWh)
Gas consumption (TWh)
2016
20
14
2017
21
15
2018
21
15

The removal of non-buildings from the ND-NEED sample is one of the reasons that the ND-
NEED energy consumption figures for non-domestic buildings are generally lower than
comparable figures from other sources such as the subnational consumption statistics. This
can be seen in Table 5, 6, 7 and 8 below.

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Table 5: Weighted and unweighted ND-NEED electricity consumption figures excluding non-
buildings, compared to subnational consumption figures for England and Wales9.
Year
Unweighted
electricity
consumption
excluding non-
buildings (TWh)
Weighted electricity
consumption
excluding non-
buildings (TWh)
Final ND-NEED
figures
% of
subnational
consumption

Subnational
consumption
(England and
Wales)9
2016
55
137
90%
152
2017
56
139
90%
154
2018
56
140
90%
155

Table 6: Weighted and unweighted ND-NEED electricity consumption figures including non-
buildings, compared to subnational consumption figures for England and Wales9.
Year
Unweighted
electricity
consumption
including non-
buildings (TWh)
Weighted electricity
consumption
including non-
buildings (TWh)
% of
subnational
consumption

Subnational
consumption
(England and
Wales)9
2016
56
158
103%
152
2017
58
160
104%
154
2018
57
160
103%
155

Table 7: Weighted and unweighted ND-NEED gas consumption figures excluding non-buildings,
compared to subnational consumption figures for England and Wales10.
Year
Unweighted gas
consumption
excluding non-
buildings (TWh)
Weighted gas
consumption
excluding non-
buildings (TWh)
Final ND-NEED figures
% of
subnational
consumption

Subnational
consumption
(England and
Wales)10
2016
44
147
94%
155
2017
45
148
91%
164
2018
46
153
92%
167

9Subnational electricity consumption statistics – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-
data-sets/regional-and-local-authority-electricity-consumption-statistics
10Sub-national gas consumption statistics - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sub-
national-gas-consumption-data

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Table 8: Weighted and unweighted ND-NEED gas consumption figures including non-buildings,
compared to subnational consumption figures for England and Wales10.
Year
Unweighted gas
consumption
including non-
buildings (TWh)
Weighted gas
consumption
including non-
buildings (TWh)

% of
subnational
consumption

Subnational
consumption
(England and
Wales)10
2016
45
161
103%
155
2017
47
163
100%
164
2018
48
168
101%
167
Comparing the results in ND-NEED to comparable figures from
other publications
The electricity/gas consumption of non-domestic buildings broken down by building use is
available in other publications as well as in ND-NEED.
Figures 24 and 25 compare the total electricity and gas consumption figures for non-domestic
buildings from three different sources (ND-NEED, BEES4 and ECUK3). Note, ND-NEED and
BEES figures cover England and Wales, whereas ECUK figures cover the UK as a whole.
In general, all three publications have similar electricity consumption figures by building use.
The figures in ECUK are generally higher than the figures in ND-NEED and BEES. This is
consistent with the fact that ECUK covers the whole of the UK, whereas the ND-NEED and
BEES just cover England and Wales. Methodological differences also account for some of this
difference.
The notable exception to this is Factories where consumption in BEES is much lower than in
ND-NEED (11 TWh in BEES compared to 43 TWh in ND-NEED). Factory consumption figures
are not available for ECUK. This difference can be explained by a difference in the BEES and
ND-NEED methodologies. The BEES consumption figure refers to all electricity consumed by
the building whereas the ND-NEED figures, as they are based on meter point data, refer to all
energy consumed by the building and any activity inside the building. In the case of factories,
this means that industrial processes are not included in the BEES consumption figures, but
they are included in ND-NEED.

10Sub-national gas consumption statistics - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sub-
national-gas-consumption-data
3ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1 -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

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The gas consumption figures show a similar pattern to the electricity consumption figures. For
all sectors except Factories the consumption figures are relatively consistent across all three
publications. The ND-NEED consumption figures for Factories is much higher than the BEES
consumption figure for the reason stated above.
Figure 24: Non-domestic building electricity consumption from this version of ND-NEED for
2016, BEES for 2014-154, and ECUK for 20163.

Figure 25: Non-domestic building gas consumption from this version of ND-NEED for 2016,
BEES for 2014-154, and ECUK for 20163.

3ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1. BEES does not have figures for gas
consumption so non-electric consumption figures are used. -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-energy-efficiency-survey-bees

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Current limitations of ND-NEED
There are several aspects of ND-NEED’s methodology which currently limit the insights that’s
ND-NEED can provide. Before the next publication of ND-NEED, work will be undertaken to
see if any of these limitations can be addressed.
The key limitations of ND-NEED are:
Address matching
• Incorrect matches between the non-domestic buildings data and the energy
consumption data (see Annex A).
o Due to difficulties with the address matching process used to match the energy
consumption data to AddressBase, some matches will not be correct. It is
estimated that around 5% of address matches are incorrect.
o If an energy meter data has been matched with the wrong address in
AddressBase it will then match to the wrong address in the ND-NEED building
stock. The consumption of that building with therefore be assigned to the wrong
building and business characteristics information, and weighted accordingly,
causing distortions in the data.
• Lower than 50% match rate between the non-domestic buildings data and the energy
consumption data (see Annex A).
o Only 44% of non-domestic buildings in the ND-NEED building stock are matched
to electricity consumption data and only 17% are matched to gas consumption
data (excluding non-buildings).
Weighting (see weighting section of the methodology)
• Because we cannot match all non-domestic buildings data with their energy
consumption data, weighting is needed to ensure the ND-NEED consumption figures
are representative of the population.
o There are however several limitations of the ND-NEED weighting process. Firstly,
there is currently no information in ND-NEED about business size at the
population level. Business size is therefore not accounted for in the weighting
process. Secondly, although floor area is a factor in the weighting process, the
relatively high rates of missing floor area information in ND-NEED reduces the
efficacy of the floor area weighting.
• Applying energy weights to energy intensity figures.
o Energy intensity is influenced by both the energy consumption and the floor area
of a building, whereas the energy weight currently applied to energy intensity
figures is just influenced by a building’s energy consumption. This means that
differences in floor area between the buildings in the sample and the population
are not accounted for.

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Time series
• The building stock figures used in ND-NEED, based on position of the 2017 NDR at
March 2020, do not include sites that have closed (or no longer attract business rates,
for example, if converted to domestic use) since the previous update (in 2010). Because
of this, any buildings that do not exist in March 2020 will not be included in the ND-
NEED stock and so cannot be matched to energy consumption data.
• The energy consumption data used in this version of ND-NEED only includes meters
which are active in 2018. Because of this, any energy consumption from meters that
have now been deenergised e.g. because the building has been destroyed, is not
captured.
• The weighting process in ND-NEED is currently unable to account sufficiently for this.
This makes it difficult to create a robust time series from the ND-NEED. Energy
consumption in earlier years is likely to be underestimated, as energy consumed by
buildings/meters that no longer exist would not be captured.

Missing data
• Many buildings in ND-NEED are missing information on business/building size (see
Annex E).
o The main consequences of the high level of missing data in ND-NEED is that the
consumption value associated with a particular business or building size will likely
be an underestimate, as some consumption from buildings that are missing
business/building size information will likely fall into that category.
Mixed building use
• Assigning building use to buildings containing multiple hereditaments of different
building uses.
o The data received from the VOA (NDR/SMV) is at the hereditament level and
must be aggregated to the building level for use in ND-NEED. Where a building
contains multiple hereditaments of different building uses the building use of the
hereditament with the largest floor area is assigned to the building. However, it is
possible that the building use of the hereditament with the largest floor area does
not best represent the building use of the building as a whole. Improving the
building use classification for building uses with multiple hereditaments would
improve the accuracy of ND-NEED’s energy consumption and energy intensity
figures by building use.
Business size
• The business size information in ND-NEED is the size of the business that occupies the
building, not the number of employees that work in the building. Because of this a small
branch of a national store will be a large business in ND-NEED, even if there are only a
few employees in the building.

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Accompanying tables
The following tables are available on the department’s statistics website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/non-domestic-national-energy-efficiency-data-
framework-nd-need

1
Number and total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by
building use, end of March 2020.
2
Number and total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by floor
area bands, end of March 2020.
3.1 & 3.2 ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity consumption and intensity by
building use, 2016-2018.
3.3 & 3.4
ND-NEED non-domestic building gas consumption and intensity by
building use, 2016-2018.
4.1 & 4.2 ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity consumption and intensity by
business size, 2018.
4.3 & 4.4
ND-NEED non-domestic building gas consumption and intensity by
business size, 2018.
5.1 & 5.2 ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity consumption and intensity by
building size, 2018.
5.3 & 5.4
ND-NEED non-domestic building gas consumption and intensity by
building size, 2018.
6.1
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building use
and building size, end of March 2020.
7.1 & 7.2 ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
business size and building size, 2018.
8.1 & 8.2 ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use and business size, 2018.
9.1 & 9.2 ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity consumption by building use
and building size, 2018.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
38
Related statistics
Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework: energy statistics 2006-2012
Previous release of the ND-NEED statistics, March 2015.
The non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED)
Overview of the concept of ND-NEED, known issues, plans for improvement, preliminary
results and the proposed weighting methodology, May 2014.
National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (NEED)
Summary statistics of domestic energy consumption 2005-2018, June 2020.
Revisions policy
The BEIS statistical revisions policy sets out the revisions policy for these statistics, which has
been developed in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics.
User engagement
Users are encouraged to provide comments and feedback on how these statistics are used
and how well they meet user needs. Comments on any issues relating to this statistical release
are welcomed and should be sent to: xxx@xxx.xx.
The BEIS statement on statistical public engagement and data standards sets out the
department’s commitments on public engagement and data standards as outlined by the Code
of Practice for Statistics.
Contact
• Responsible statistician: Maya Fooks
• Email: xxx@xxx.xx
• Media enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx
• Statistical enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
39
4.Annex A: Address matching
The non-domestic building stock and BEIS’s energy meter data do not share a unique identifier
and so cannot be directly matched.
Instead the energy meter data is first matched to the AddressBase dataset. This is an
Ordnance Survey dataset that contains the addresses of all buildings in Great Britain as well
as their Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). As both the energy meter data and the
AddressBase dataset contain the buildings address, address matching is used to match these
datasets together.
An algorithm is used to carry out the address-matching. Since the 2015 publication of ND-
NEED, changes have been made to the address-matching algorithm to improve the quality of
matches.
Where buildings in the energy meter dataset successfully match to AddressBase, the UPRN
for the building can be identified. As the non-domestic building stock contains UPRN
information, the UPRN can then be used to match the energy meter and building stock
datasets.
Figure 26: Matching the non-domestic building stock to the energy meter data in ND-NEED.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
40
5.Annex B: Building use categories
The building use categories that are used in this version of ND-NEED have been chosen to
align as far as possible with the categories used in the Energy Consumption in the UK
(ECUK)3 and Business Energy Efficiency Statistics (BEES)4.

In the March 2015 publication of ND-NEED, six building use categories were used: Factories,
Offices, Restaurants, Shops, Warehouses and Other.

In this publication 10 building use categories are used: Arts, Community and Leisure;
Education; Emergency Services; Factories; Health; Hospitality; Offices; Shops; Warehouses
and Other.

Details of the buildings uses that are included in these 10 categories can be found in Table 9
below.

Table 9: The building uses included in the 10 building use categories in ND-NEED.

3ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5 - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-
consumption-in-the-uk
4BEES, Overarching report tables, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/building-
energy-efficiency-survey-bees
Building type
Buildings included
Arts, Community and Leisure
Cinemas, Community centres, Libraries/Museums, Sports
centres, Sports grounds
Education
Nurseries, State schools, Private schools, Universities
Emergency Services
Ambulance/Fire stations, Police stations
Factories
Factories
Health
Healthcare
Hospitality
Restaurants, Hostels, Hotels, Holiday homes/Guesthouses,
Pubs
Offices
Offices
Shops
Shops
Warehouses
Warehouses
Other
Bus stations/moorings, Cemeteries, Docks, Electricity
hereditaments, Garages, Markets, Military premises,
Sewage treatments

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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6.Annex C: Changes since the 2015
publication
ND-NEED was last published in 2015. Since 2015 there have been several changes to the
methodology.
The key changes are listed below:
• Improvements to address matching (see Annex A)
• Updated VOA data. The 2020 publication of ND-NEED uses the 2017 ratings list as at
the end of March 2020, whereas the 2015 publication used the 2010 ratings list.
• Updated meter data
A further change between the 2015 and 2020 versions of ND-NEED are the charts and data
tables that have been published.
The 2020 version of ND-NEED includes new information about the building type and floor area
of the non-domestic building stock. This was not present in the 2015 version of ND-NEED.
The 2020 version of ND-NEED also contains a slightly different combination of charts and data
tables for the energy consumption data. The charts and data tables included in the 2020
version of ND-NEED are designed to be easy to use and understand, and to cover the topics
most useful to the ND-NEED end-users.

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
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7.Annex D: Removing inaccurate floor area
data
The NDR/SMV received from the VOA contains information on floor area. This floor area
information is at hereditament level. For some hereditaments, this floor area information is
missing in the VOA’s data.
As ND-NEED presents information at the building level, when there are multiple hereditaments
in a single building are the floor area of the constituent hereditaments are added together.
Before hereditament floor areas are aggregated to the building level all hereditaments with a
floor area of <15m2 have their floor area value are removed. This is because, for the purposes
of ND-NEED, these floor area values are thought to be inaccurate.
The floor area of building uses for which floor area is not used to inform VOA’s building rating
are also removed. This occurs for the building uses listed below:

Abattoirs and
Slaughterhouses,
Agricultural Showgrounds,
Air Ports,
Air Strips,
Aluminium Smelting Works,
Amusement Parks,
Aquaria,
Archives,
Arenas,
Army Hereditaments,
Artificial Fibre Works,
Asphalt Plants,
Beet Sugar Factories,
Bingo Halls,
Bird Sanctuaries,
Bowling Centres,
Brickworks,
Bulk Cement Storage
Depots,
Bus Garages,
Bus Stations,
Caravan Parks,
Caravan Sites and Pitches,
Cattle Breeding Centres,
Cement Tiles Works,
Cement Works,
Cemeteries,
Chalet Parks,
Chemical Works,
Cinemas,
Civic and Public Buildings,
Civic Amenity Sites,
Civil Airports,
Coaching Inns,
Coastguard Stations,
Courts,
Coking and Carbonising
Plants,
Colleges of Further
Educations,
Communication Stations,
Concert Halls,
Concrete Batching Plants,
Concrete Block Works,
Concrete Product Works,
Conference and Exhibition
Centres,
Conference Centres in
Country Houses,
Country House Hotels,
Courts,
Crematoria,
Cricket Centres,
Cricket Grounds,
Crown Miscellaneous,
District Heating Undertakings
and Networks,
Docks and Harbours,
Domestic Fuel Installations,
Effluent Minewater
Treatment Plants and
Premises,
Electricity Undertakings,
Field Study Activity and
Adventure Centres,
Fire Stations,
Fish Farms,
Flour Mills,
Football Stadia,
Formula Assessed
Miscellaneous,
Game Farms,
Gas Processing Plants,
Go Kart Rinks,
Golf Driving Ranges,
Grain Silos,
Greyhound Racetracks,
Hatcheries/Poultry Farms,
Health Farms,
Heliports,
Heredits used for Primary
Treatment/Processing of
Minerals,
Heritage Railways,
Holiday Centres,
Horse Racecourses,
Hospitals and Clinics NHS,
Hospitals and Clinics Private,
Hotels (3 star and under),
Operated,
Ice Rinks,
Information/Visitor Centres,
Iron and/or Steel Works,
Lakes with Water Sport
Facilities,

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Framework 2020
43
Land used for Car Boot
Sales,
Landfill Gas Generator Sites,
Land used for Waste
Composting,
Leisure Miscellaneous,
Libraries,
Lifeboat Stations,
Liquid Bulk Storage,
Livestock Markets,
Local Authority Schools,
Lodges,
Marinas,
Markets,
Mineral Depots and
Premises,
Minerals Miscellaneous,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Blockstone,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Brine,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Chalk,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – China Clay,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Clay,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Coal,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Fluorspar,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Gas,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Hardrock,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Inert,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Oil,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Other
Mineral Categories,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Putrescible,
Mineral Producing
Hereditament – Sand,
Gravel, and, Slates,
Miniature Railways,
Model Villages,
Mortuaries,
Motor Racetracks,
Motor Vehicle Works,
Motorway and Major Road
Service Areas,
Museums and Art Galleries
(Contractors),
Museums and Art Galleries
(Non-Contractors),
Nuclear Establishments,
Nursing Homes,
Observatories,
Oil Refineries,
Oxbridge Colleges,
Peat Fields,
Petrol Filling Stations,
Pipelines,
Pitch and Putting Greens
Pleasure Piers,
Point to Point and Eventing
Courses,
Police Stations,
Police Training Colleges,
Power Generators,
Prison Service
Hereditaments,
Property used for Secondary
Aggregate Processing,
Provender Mills,
Public Conveniences,
Public Halls,
Public Houses/Pub
Restaurants,
Public Houses/Pub
Pumping Mines
Railways and Tramways,
Religious Retreats/Study
Centres (Residential),
Restaurants (inc. Lodge),
Roller Skating Rinks,
Rugby League Grounds,
Sea Dredged Aggregate
Processing Plants and
Depots,
Sewage Works,
Ship Building Yards,
Ship Repair Yards,
Ski Centres,
Showhouses,
Speedway Racetracks,
Spoil Heap Workings,
Sporting Rights,
Sports and Leisure Centres
(Dry Only),

Sports and Leisure Centres
(Wet and Dry),
Sports and Leisure Centres
Within/Part of Specialist
Property,
Sports Stadia,
Stately Homes and Historic
Houses,
Statutory Docks and
Harbours (Formula),
Statutory Docks and
Harbours (Non-Formula
Prescribed),
Statutory Docks and
Harbours (Other),
Surgeries Clinics Health
Centres (Contractors
Valuation),
Swimming Pools (Local
Authority),
Swimming Pools (Private),
Telecommunications Cable
Networks,
Telecommunications
Switching Centres,
Telescope Sites,
Tennis Centres,
Theatres,
Theme Parks,
Timeshare Complexes,
Tolls,
Totalisators on Horse
Racecourses,
Tourist Attractions/Dark
Rides,
Training Centres
(Residential),
University – Ancillary Land or
Buildings,
Universities (excluding
Oxbridge),
University Occupation Within
Hospitals,
War Game Courses/Misc.
Agriculture Use,
Waste Incinerator Plants,
Waste Transfer Stations,
Water Undertakings (Non-
Statutory),
Windmills,
Zoos and Safari Parks.

8.Annex E: Detailed breakdown of the ND-
NEED sample
In the ND-NEED data some buildings are missing building/business characteristic information.
The number of buildings that are missing building/business characteristic information, and the
information that they are missing can be seen in the tables below.

Table 12: The number of buildings in the ND-NEED building stock which have building use and
floor area information.

Building use
Floor area
Building use and
floor area
Building stock
1,656,000
1,368,000
1,368,000

Table 13: The number of buildings in the ND-NEED electricity/gas consumption sample which
have building use, floor area and business size information.

Building
use
Floor
area
Business
size
Building
use and
floor
area
Building
use and
business
size
Floor
area and
business
size
Building
use, floor
area and
business
size
Electricity
726,000 613,000
369,000
613,000
369,000
328,000
328,000
Gas
287,000 228,000
161,000
228,000
161,000
136,000
136,000

Table 14: The number of buildings in the ND-NEED building stock which are missing building
characteristic information.

Missing building
use
Missing floor area
Missing both
building use and
floor area
Building stock
0
288,000
288,000

Table 15: The number of buildings in the ND-NEED electricity/gas consumption sample which
are missing building/business characteristic information.

Missing
building
use
Missing
floor
area
Missing
business
size
Missing
building
use and
floor
area
Missing
building
use and
business
size
Missing
floor area
and
business
size
Missing
building
use, floor
area and
business
size
Electricity
0 113,000
357,000
113,000
357,000
73,000
73,000
Gas
0
59,000
126,000
59,000
126,000
34,000
34,000

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