id3 (eye-dee-cubed) will provide a web-based tool to deliver the digital Plan of Work and classification system to enable widespread adoption of Level 2 BIM across all infrastructure sectors and the built environment. This initiative will be delivered through C8 - a collaboration of eight leading professional bodies involved in the construction and operation of the built environment and infrastructure in the UK and overseas. The eight bodies are the: Association for Project Management (APM), British Institute of Facilities Management, (BIFM) Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE - the lead applicant), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). C8 brings engagement with the widest range of senior industry specialists actively engaged in the development of the digital plan of work, classification and the other elements of the Level 2 BIM delivery framework. The C8 approach involves wide contacts and connections with all aspects of the infrastructure, built environment and operational industries, with groups, organisations and individuals across the whole supply chain, as well as the members of the C8 institutions as key stakeholders and as customers for the data cube and associated products and services. id3 aims to deliver a clear, holistic definition of the “digital data cube”, defining ‘what needs doing’, to what level of detail, by whom and when for all stages of projects and operation, providing a coherent integrated approach for the whole built environment, covering the whole life of the infrastructure asset or building. This will enable application to organisations with single assets or portfolios, to asset management programmes and individual projects of all sizes – while maintaining and respecting the disciplines and directions of Level 2 BIM. C8 specifically aims to enable cross-sectoral, multi-professional, industry-wide collaboration to support the transition of construction, infrastructure and built environment sectors in the UK to a digital, data driven economy and to give their 450,000 members and other stakeholders in the UK and approximately 100 other countries the knowledge, guidance and professional recognition and development needed to operate in this new business environment. Phase 1 will deliver a detailed specification for the Digital Plan of Work (dPoW) and classification system (CS) and their integration with the existing elements of the level 2 framework. It will also provide a clear business plan and specification for the platform required to deliver the dPoW and the full id3 vision through Phase 2. Phase 2 will coordinate and consolidate the seven elements making up BIM Level 2, including the BS 1192 series, contract protocols and Government Soft Landings (GSL), as well as the newly developed definitive digital Plan of Work and Classification System. This will be delivered through the web, available free of charge and maintained and developed over a 5 year period, on a stable, resilient platform.

The UK uses around 50 GW of energy to heat and cool buildings, only 6% of which comes from renewable sources. Reducing building sector emissions is an essential part of the UK's decarbonisation strategy for achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. However, heat is challenging to decarbonise due to its extreme seasonality. Daily heat demand ranges from around 15 to 150 GW, so new technologies with inter-seasonal storage are essential. Heating buildings in winter and cooling them in summer produces waste heat or cool that is currently lost. We propose a technology to instead store this and re-use when required, by warming or cooling groundwater that is pumped underground and stored in an aquifer (porous rock mass). In summer, warm water is stored to provide heating in winter; in winter, cool water is stored to provide cooling in summer. This technology is termed aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) and has been widely applied in other countries, notably the Netherlands where there are over 2500 ATES installations. These have shown that the technology is highly efficient, recycling up to 90% of the energy that would otherwise be wasted. ATES can be deployed with renewable electricity sources, storing excess output to help ease the challenges of integrating >40 GW of intermittent offshore wind energy. The UK has only a handful of projects, mainly located in London and supplying less than 0.025% of UK demand. Yet it has high potential for ATES: there are seasonal variations in temperature and widespread aquifers where heat and cool can be stored. Moreover, there is increasing demand for cooling as well as heating, as summers become hotter and longer. Experience in other countries has shown that widespread deployment of ATES can be prevented by technical, economic and societal barriers, such as uncertainty in the response of aquifers to energy storage, a lack of knowledge of the economic value and decarbonisation potential of the technology, and lack of public understanding or acceptance. This project brings together geoscientists, geoengineers, economists and social scientists to address key barriers to deployment of ATES in the UK, proposing solutions that inform government policy, the regulatory framework, planning authorities, and energy and infrastructure companies. The project integrates four key strands, combining technical geoscience and geoengineering research with economics and social science research. This integrated approach is essential to address deployment barriers. Our overall goal is to deliver solutions and recommendations that facilitate an increase the capacity of ATES in the UK to several GW (a thousand-fold increase on current capacity) with projects widely deployed across the UK. Our research will determine the UK capacity for ATES, linking supply and demand and creating maps for policy makers and planners. We will understand how a key UK aquifer responds to ATES by conducting field trials and laboratory experiments. We will identify strategies to deploy and operate ATES systems that maximize storage capacity and efficiency, while accounting for uncertainties in aquifer behaviour that are inevitable when engineering natural systems. Our economic research will quantify the economic value of ATES, accounting for the lifecycle costs of installation and operation, and the added value that ATES can deliver to the wider energy system storing excess renewable energy from wind and solar in times of low demand. We will quantify the decarbonisation potential of ATES in a lifecycle context, so it can be objectively compared against other low carbon heating and cooling options. Our social science research will ensure responsible deployment of ATES, promoting the co-design of ATES projects in line with societal priorities and values. It will use international examples to identify best practice, and identify and quantify broader societal benefits, such as the potential to develop a demand for skilled jobs.