SatVu has received €244,853 in funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) to conduct a feasibility study, in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, to enhance the analysis of building energy efficiency.
The study will drive the development of the Heat Loss Index (HLI), a pioneering metric designed to identify buildings with high thermal energy wastage, enabling policymakers and urban planners to focus retrofitting efforts where they will have the greatest impact.
Traditional thermal surveys—whether conducted via drones or manual inspections—are costly and impractical at scale. Meanwhile, existing openly available thermal satellite datasets, such as Landsat or ECOSTRESS, lack the resolution (70–100m) needed to assess individual buildings.
SatVu’s space-based approach changes the game. By leveraging high-resolution MWIR spectrum imagery with a ground sampling distance of 3.5m, SatVu will deliver unprecedented insights into urban energy loss—at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods.
“The Heat Loss Index has the potential to become a key benchmark for urban energy efficiency,” said Natalia Kuniewicz, Business Development Climate & Sustainability Lead at SatVu. “If successful, this initiative could transform how cities tackle energy waste, directly influencing retrofitting strategies, cutting emissions, and accelerating climate resilience.”
“The newly developed Heat Loss Index by utilising high-resolution thermal images from SatVU and associated multi-source geospatial datasets, will become a major breakthrough to identify heat loss at a large scale globally for our cities for the first time,” said Prof. Qunshan Zhao, Professor in Urban Analytics based in Urban Big Data Centre and University of Glasgow. “We will validate the Heat Loss Index by using in-home temperature sensors as well as smart metre reading to ensure accuracy, and hope to use this product to accelerate the net zero carbon transition agenda in major global cities, especially in the lagging behind building sectors ”
With global energy efficiency targets tightening and cities under pressure to meet ambitious net-zero goals, space-based thermal intelligence could be the breakthrough tool urban planners have been waiting for—helping to build greener, more sustainable cities.
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