Recurring question: we are thinking about having our buildings participate in the next edition of Cube 2020 and we are wondering the following about their eligibility in terms of the competition: one of our buildings accommodates both service and production activities. Is it eligible to participate in the competition?

“Pure” services do not exist and during the first edition we worked with many buildings where there was a certain amount of process (laboratories, workshops, reprography services, computer rooms, sorting machines, etc.) consuming structurally, in an extreme case, up to half of the electrical power purchased. We verified in advance that

1. either the hosted activity was almost constant or slightly dependent on other factors such as climate and usage,
2. or otherwise that a sub-metering allowed this consumption to be deducted.

Development of the first point: a process largely dependent on usage and climate.

If there is a lot of process and the “order backlog” has a significant impact on energy consumption, your performance in terms of competition risks being masked by an increase in activity (which is what you want!) or overly improved in the opposite case. So in the past we have therefore:

• accepted a building with a continuous stable process during the year, whose energy performance depends on the user (I do not let my welding apparatus get hooked up more than necessary!),
• rejected an administrative building annexed to biotechnology testing greenhouses, which were heated or not heated depending on the experiments (consumption was too erratic),

Finally, we accepted a building that was absolutely determined to compete and that had a significant part of its consumption dependent on turnover. It just competed against itself and was not classified.