The NatHERS dataset: An exploration of its content, provenance, and usefulness in the characterization of new residential building

New residential buildings in Australia must demonstrate compliance with the energy efficiency provisions of the National Construction Code (NCC) in order to gain a building permit. 71% of new residential buildings demonstrate compliance by using a Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) accredited software tool. The data collected and generated by these tools have the potential to provide valuable insights into Australia's residential building industry, giving advance knowledge of not only the number of planned builds and their energy efficiency, but also planned construction material types and quantities. The data would be of value to government departments, construction companies, the real estate industry, energy distributors, and researchers. This paper describes the content and provenance of this dataset, explores how it might be used to characterise new residential building stock, and presents sample data and analysis.