The European Space Agency (ESA) has funded a feasibility study, led by climate-tech company SatVu in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, to transform how cities analyse building energy efficiency.
The €244,853 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 believe their space-based approach is a game-changer. 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.
Natalia Kuniewicz, Business Development Climate & Sustainability Lead at SatVu said:
“The Heat Loss Index has the potential to become a key benchmark for urban energy efficiency,”
“If successful, this initiative could transform how cities tackle energy waste, directly influencing retrofitting strategies, cutting emissions, and accelerating climate resilience.”
Qunshan Zhao, Professor in Urban Analytics based in the University of Glasgow’s Urban Big Data Centre said:
“By utilising high-resolution thermal images from SatVU and associated multi-source geospatial datasets, the newly developed Heat Loss Index is a major breakthrough in identifying heat loss at a large scale globally for our cities,”
“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.