Coventry City Council Using Drones to Measure Building’s Energy Efficiency 

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19 February 2025

Thermal camera drones are being used by Coventry City Council to discover precisely how and where heat escapes from buildings. 

The council is working with E.ON and tech startup Kestrix to gain heat loss data on thousands of homes in Coventry. The drone can collect data in just a few minutes, using thermal imaging cameras to scan a bird’s-eye view of homes from about 50 metres high.

The cameras capture infrared radiation emitted from objects and convert it into visual images, showing where heat leaks. This can identify faulty insulation and estimate overall space heating demand intensity (the rate at which the whole building leaks heat). 

The project is being described as the “Google Maps of heat loss”, enabling landlords and local authorities to prioritise heat efficiency improvements. The data captured could also help social landlords and local authorities to plan and prioritise the work and, over time, aspire to build up a map of heat losses community-wide.

The trial is the largest scale application of the Kestrix system in the world, and the drone thermal imaging will analyse more than 4,000 homes in the Hillfields area in the east of the city.

Councillor Jim O’Boyle, Cabinet Member for Jobs, Regeneration and Climate Change, said: “This new technological innovation will allow E.ON, our strategic energy partner, to assess heat loss from homes at scale and get vital data on where and how we can encourage or support local people to make improvements – in turn saving them cash on their heating bills. It will also mean that some people who might not qualify for support will be able to have a look at the data for their home in case there is action they want to take.”

Lucy Lyons, Co-Founder of Kestrix, added: “There is no scalable, cost-effective way of knowing reliably how heat is lost across the millions of buildings we all live, work and play in – let alone how to fix it and how much fixes will cost. We need to upgrade millions of homes across the UK and with scarce finance, time and resources it’s critical to put insulation where it’s needed – with partners like E.ON and Coventry City Council we have the ambition and scale to make a real difference in people’s lives.”

Picture: a photograph of a drone hovering above a person's hand. Image Credit: Unsplash

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 19 February 2025

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