The urban heat island (UHI) effect is an inadvertent modification of climate which leads to increased temperatures in urban areas. This in turn increases localised demand for air conditioning and refrigeration which can be a significant drain on energy resources. At a time of increasing economic, political and environmental concerns with respect to energy policy, security, efficiency and climate change, there is a need to focus efforts to understand energy usage in cities for current and future climates. Using data from an Urban Meteorological Network (UMN) along with a critiqued degree days methodology, this thesis analyses the UHI and estimate current and future cooling demand in Birmingham-UK. From the results it was possible to identify that currently the main factor in energy consumption is income, however when isolating income influence through normalization process it is possible to identify the impact of the UHI. A significant finding was that the distribution of the surface UHI appears to be clearly linked to landuse, whereas for canopy UHI, advective processes appear to play an important role. Analysing Tair data available from the UMN the cooling demand for summer 2013 and future climate scenarios were calculated and demonstrated the importance of high resolution air temperature measurements in estimating electricity demand within urban areas.

Στα πλαίσια του θέματος της πτυχιακής εργασίας «Αντιλήψεις φοιτητών/τριών Παιδαγωγικών Τμημάτων Προσχολικής Ηλικίας σχετικά με την εξοικονόμηση ενέργειας», πραγματοποιήθηκε μια έρευνα προκειμένου να διαπιστωθεί σε φοιτητές/τριες των Παιδαγωγικών Τμημάτων Προσχολικής Ηλικίας Βόλου και Πάτρας κατά πόσο είναι εξοικειωμένοι με τις Φυσικές Επιστήμες, καθώς και με τη κατανόηση τις έννοιας «εξοικονόμηση ενέργειας μέσω λαμπτήρων». Μέσω της έρευνας, η οποία πραγματοποιήθηκε με την βοήθεια ερωτηματολογίου για τη συλλογή των δεδομένων μας, διατυπώνονται συγκεκριμένα ερωτήματα. Τα ερωτήματα αυτά, αφορούν τον τρόπο λειτουργίας λαμπτήρων πυρακτώσεως όσο και λαμπτήρων εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Παράλληλα, θέτονται μέσω του ερωτηματολογίου προβληματισμοί γύρω από τον τρόπο με τον οποίο μπορούμε να εξοικονομήσουμε ενέργεια μέσω της χρήσης λαμπτήρων εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Γενικότεροι Στόχοι της έρευνας είναι: • να διαπιστωθεί κατά πόσο επεκτείνεται η γνώση πάνω στη λειτουργία των λαμπτήρων τόσο των φοιτητών/τριών Βόλου όσο και φοιτητών/τριών Πάτρας. Σαν μέτρο σύγκρισης λαμβάνονται η διδασκαλία Φυσικών Επιστημών στο Πανεπιστήμιο, η κατεύθυνση που είχαν επιλέξει οι φοιτητές/τριες στο λύκειο (θετική, τεχνολογική, θεωρητική) καθώς και ο τόπος στον οποίο πραγματοποιούνται οι σπουδές των φοιτητών/τριών.(Βόλος ή Πάτρα). • Να διαπιστωθεί η στάση των φοιτητών/τριών απέναντι στην ανάγκη για εξοικονόμηση ενέργειας. Μέσω του ερωτηματολογίου θα μπορέσουμε να πάρουμε τα απαραίτητα στοιχεία προκείμενου να διαπιστώσουμε αν διεκπεραιώθηκαν οι παραπάνω στόχοι που έχουμε θέσει. Τα αποτελέσματα του ερωτηματολογίου αναλύονται μέσω του προγράμματος SPSS με αναλυτικούς πίνακες και διαγράμματα ενώ αναλύονται παρακάτω η στρατηγική, οι τεχνικές καθώς και το ακριβές δείγμα της έρευνας. Τέλος μέσω της έρευνας, μελετάται το διεθνές πρόγραμμα αξιολόγησης μαθητών PISA και η σχέση του με τις Φυσικές Επιστήμες, καθώς και οι επιδράσεις και τα αποτελέσματα του συγκεκριμένου προγράμματος στην Ελλάδα. / In terms of our diploma’s final project, concerning: “students’ of the Department of Education Sciences in Pre-school Ages, beliefs about energy saving”, we performed a research in order to ascertain how familiar these students are with physical sciences and the idea of saving energy using lamps. Through the research which took place using a questionnaire as a helping hand in collecting the data, several questions are phrased. These questions pertain to the incandescence lamps, as well as the energy saving type lamps. At the same time, some sobering thoughts are expressed through the questionnaire referring to the way energy can be saved by using the energy saving type lamps. General Goals of this research are: * To figure out in which way the knowledge on the function of the lamps extends to the students of the department of Volos, as well as the department of Patras. As a comparing point, we used the lectures taken place in science classes in the university, the branch that the students had picked during their high school years (scientific, technological, and theoretical) along with the area in which the students study. (University of Volos, University of Patras). * To find out how the students feel towards the need to save energy. Through the questionnaire, we would be able to get the data needed, in order to make sure if we succeeded to get the answers to the goals we had set. The questionnaire’s results were analyzed through the SPSS program using analyzing boards and diagrams, while the strategy, the techniques and the research’s exact sample are analyzed as well later on. Finally through the research, the program for international students’ assessment (PISA) is examined, along with its impact and results in Greece.

Energy consumption in the home depends on appliance ownership and use, space heating systems, control set-points and hot water use. It represents a significant proportion of national demand in the UK. The factors that drive the level of consumption are a complex and interrelated mix of the numbers of people in the home, the building and system characteristics as well as the preferences for the internal environment and service choices of occupants. Reducing the energy demand in the domestic sector is critical to achieving the national 2050 carbon targets, as upward of 60% reduction in demand is assumed by many energy system scenarios and technology pathways. The uptake of reduction measures has been demonstrated to be quite ad hoc and intervention studies have demonstrated considerable variation in the results. Additionally, a limitation of many studies is that they only consider one intervention, whereas a more holistic approach to the assessment of the potential of reduction measures in specific homes may yield a better understanding of the likely impact of measures on the whole house consumption and indeed would shed light on the appropriateness of the assumptions that underpin the decisions that need to be made regarding the future energy supply system and demand strategies. This work presents a systematic approach to modelling potential reductions for a set of seven family homes, feeding back this information to householders and then evaluating the likely reduction potential based on their responses. Carried out through a combination of monitoring and semi-structured interviews, the approach develops a methodology to model energy reduction in specific homes using monitoring data and steady-state heat balance principles to determine ventilation heat loss, improving the assumptions within the energy model regarding those variables affected by human behaviour. The findings suggest that the anticipated reductions in end use energy demand in the domestic sector are possible, but that there is no `one size fits all' solution. A combination of retrofitting and lifestyle change is needed in most homes and smart home technology may potentially be useful in assisting the home owner to achieve reductions where they are attempting to strike a balance between energy efficiency, service and comfort.

In response to climate change, there is a growing need for the UK to reduce carbon emissions in the domestic sector. As a majority of energy consumed within the domestic sector is as a result of space and water heating, research in the field focuses on thermal comfort. The literature on thermal comfort is dominated by an examination of the physiological aspects, and although the influences of psychological and socio-cultural aspects are often recognised, their relationship to the physiological aspects is not fully understood. Additionally, the literature typically studies various elements of comfort (e.g. thermal, acoustic, lighting, etc.) in isolation to each other rather than taking a holistic approach which would mirror how they are experienced in the real world and identify potential associations. As a result, this thesis explores the multi-dimensions of comfort in the domestic environment. This research begins by taking a user-centred approach to exploring UK householders perspectives of comfort in the home. Through interviewing householders, the findings revealed householders attributed a wide scope of factors to their own experience of comfort, from aesthetics to feeling secure in their home; the findings highlighted the significance of psychological factors to householders comfort. The following stage involved a focused and in-depth exploration of the psychological dimensions of domestic comfort through photo elicitation interviews. The findings supported the presence of four intertwined psychological dimensions and further established the multidimensional nature of comfort. The final study was conducted to establish when comfort and unwinding takes place in householders everyday lives. Through the use of two self-reporting ethnographic tools, namely SenseCams and diaries, householders were observed in their homes. The findings captured householders engaging in various comfort making activities and also demonstrated the value of using self-reporting tools in the home context. In the final stage, a classification of domestic comfort was generated which presents an accumulation of the findings from this research to produce a holistic and multi-dimensional notion of domestic comfort.

Energy is largely invisible to users. It has been argued that employing technologies to visualise energy will assist people in conserving energy. Energy visibility interventions have largely focussed on appliance use and electricity consumption. This thesis aims to firstly explore whether making heat visible, using thermal images, promotes heat (and thereby energy) conservation. Secondly using a multiple method approach, it explores how. Five studies were employed. Study One and Three investigated whether using thermal images as a tailored antecedent intervention would promote energy conservation behaviours. The results confirmed that the images led to a reduction in Kg CO2 emissions attributed to domestic energy use. Study One and Three indicated that householders undertook more energy saving behaviours in relation to those aspects that were visible in the images. These actions were attributed to simple, energy saving behaviours such as proofing draughts. Study Two investigated how people make sense of the images and how behaviours are promoted by the images. Study two suggested that the images provide a unique medium through which factors which contribute to energy saving can be combined and reasoned by the viewer. It suggests the psychological factors in a pathway from prompt to behaviour. Study Four established that showing the images in an information presentation was not as effective when influencing participants’ ideas about energy conservation. Finally, Study Five explored participants gaze and demonstrated how features of the images, can attract the viewer. The novel contribution of this thesis is in establishing that ‘making heat visible’ through a tailored thermal imaging prompt can increase the likelihood of a householder taking simple energy saving actions, by providing a novel medium through which householders attend to heat and energy use.

Despite climate change being an increasingly important focus of scientific and policy discourse and against a backdrop of rising greenhouse gas emissions, the Russian government has, thus far, failed to commit to an ambitious emission reduction target based on the latest science. For Russia to develop informed, internally consistent and scientifically literate policies, it is important to assess the scale of the challenge and explore implications of different levels of mitigation. To this end, the thesis derives Russia's cumulative emission budgets and generates associated low-carbon pathways in the context of both a re-developing economy and international climate change objectives (in particular, keeping the global mean temperature increase below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels). This thesis draws on several disciplines, bringing together bottom-up energy system modelling from engineering and physical sciences, as well as stakeholder and expert interviews from social sciences. The principal methodological approach used here is backcasting, with a number of stakeholder interviews providing a 'reality check' for the scenarios. Given the global delay in acting on climate change, the contextual 2°C scenarios generated are ambitious and extremely challenging. With significant changes on both demand and supply sides, an annual post-peak emission reduction rate of at least 10% is required to meet the cumulative budget constraint; this despite the dramatic fall in Russia's emissions in the 1990s. Such radical reduction rates are well in excess of anything achieved or, indeed, deemed possible within existing mitigation policies and integrated assessment models - either in Russia or in any other part of the world. The necessary emission reductions would involve significant material changes to the energy system. Even with early reductions, to attain a low-carbon energy system in 2050 in accordance with the 2°C cumulative emission constraint, all of the available 'mature' technological options would need to be employed. In particular, short-term mitigation can be facilitated by Russia's large energy efficiency potential and a significant biomass potential. In the long term, mitigation could draw on the country's considerable renewable energy resources. If the peak in Russia's emissions is delayed until 2020-2025, staying within a national 2°C budget constraint will require a rapid and widespread deployment of currently speculative negative-emission technologies. Whilst the suggested mitigation pathways with emissions peaking early are demanding, they are potentially less challenging and destabilising than failing to mitigate and subsequently adapting to climate change impacts of a 6-16°C temperature rise across Russia. The precautionary principle, together with the multiple uncertainties associated with negative emissions, would suggest that starting the decarbonisation process early is critical. Along with other big emitters, Russia has a pivotal role in influencing the future direction of international climate change mitigation and adaptation. Not only is Russia a major emitter of greenhouse gases and a global supplier of fossil fuels, but also it remains a major force in geopolitics, and its diverse territory is both vulnerable and resilient to the impacts of climate change. This unique confluence of circumstances leaves Russia with a challenging dilemma. The country can choose to acquiesce to short-term political and economic considerations, adopt weak mitigation measures and face potentially devastating impacts. Or it can apply its considerable attributes and powers to instigate an epoch of national and global action to secure a low-carbon and climate-resilient future. Whilst the former will see Russia subsumed into the international malaise on climate change, the latter may both quench the nation's "thirst for greatness" and fill the void of climate leadership.

Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB) is an emerging research area concerned with the application of design strategies to influence consumer behaviour during the use phase of a product towards more sustainable action. Current DfSB research has primarily focussed on strategy definition and selection, with little research into formalising a mature design process through which to design these behaviour changing interventions. Furthermore, understanding the actual sustainability and behavioural impact yielded through such investigations is limited in addition to the suitability and transferability of evaluation methods and results having seldom been discussed. This thesis investigated how DfSB models and strategies can be implemented within a structured design process towards a sustainable change in user behaviour. This was achieved by focussing a case study within the UK social housing sector with the aim of reducing domestic energy consumption through behaviour changing intervention, whilst maintaining occupant defined comfort levels. Following an in depth study of physical and behavioural control mechanisms as well as comfort and energy within the research context, a behaviour changing prototype was developed through an augmented user-centred design process, resulting in a physical manifestation of one specific DfSB strategy feedback; a user agentive performance indicator. In order to evaluate this feedback prototype, an evaluation framework was developed, targeted at the three fundamental questions that arise when faced with the evaluation of a DfSB strategy led intervention: (1) Did the produced design solution function for the specified context? (2) Has the user's behaviour changed as a consequence of the design intervention? (3) Is the change in user s behaviour sustainable? Applying these core questions in practice through focus groups and user trials resulted in an evaluation of unparalleled depth. The findings of this thesis illustrate the success of using this augmented design process and tripartite questioning strategy towards the design and evaluation of a DfSB strategy led intervention, building a vital knowledge platform for the formalisation of transferable DfSB theory, design and evaluation methods.

Στην παρούσα εργασία αναπτύχθηκε ένα θεωρητικό πλαίσιο, το οποίο αναλύει την ενεργειακή αποτελεσματικότητα, τους προσδιοριστικούς παράγοντες που ευθύνονται για το ενεργειακό παράδοξο και επικεντρώνεται ιδιαίτερα στον ρόλο της αβεβαιότητας και των προσδοκιών στην πραγματοποίηση επενδύσεων εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Επιπλέον αναπτύχθηκε ένα εμπειρικό μοντέλο που εκτιμήθηκε με τη μέθοδο OLS και το υπόδειγμα Tobit για να προσδιοριστούν οι παράγοντες που επιδρούν στις επενδύσεις εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Σα εμπειρικά αποτελέσματα αναδεικνύουν ότι οι επενδύσεις σε ΣΕΕ, στην περίπτωση της Ελληνικής Βιομηχανίας είναι στενά συνδεδεμένες με τον κλάδο που δραστηριοποιείται η επιχείρηση. Ο κλάδος δραστηριοποίησης επιδρά και στην επενδυτική συμπεριφορά της επιχείρησης καθορίζοντας τη στάση που κα ακολουθήσει. Ένα άλλο συμπέρασμα είναι ότι η ύπαρξη εναλλακτικού επενδυτικού σχεδίου είναι σημαντικό εμπόδιο στις επενδύσεις εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Από την άλλη πλευρά, η θετική στάση της επιχείρησης απέναντι στην σπουδαιότητα των επενδύσεων εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας επιδρά θετικά στην πραγματοποίηση τους. Ομοίως στην περίπτωση των ελληνικών βιομηχανιών, οι μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις και οι επιχειρήσεις που έχουν μεγάλο χρόνο ζωής προωθούν τις επενδύσεις εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Τέλος η αβεβαιότητα και οι προσδοκίες είναι κρίσιμοι παράγοντες για την απόφαση των επιχειρήσεων να επενδύσουν σε τεχνολογίες εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας. Για την εγχώρια βιομηχανία η προσδοκία για αύξηση του εργασιακού κόστους είναι αποτρεπτικός παράγοντας για τις επενδύσεις εξοικονόμησης ενέργειας, ενώ η αβεβαιότητα για τις επιπτώσεις στο περιβάλλον αποδεικνύεται ισχυρό κίνητρο για την πραγματοποίησή τους. / Uncertainty and expectations in energy conservation investments.

Huge amounts of energy are consumed by hospitals to improve the health environment for patients. This energy needs to be stable and continuous. Therefore, it is necessary to manage energy consumption. The purpose of this research is to study the energy management performance in hospitals in Saudi Arabia aiming to develop theoretical framework for energy management and to provide guideline to support implementing an effective energy management system in hospitals. This research consists of two main parts. The first part involves the assessment of the level of energy management program and the gathering of energy consumption quantitative data from five hospitals in order to determine the level of implementation of energy management program and the amounts and percentage of annual change in electricity consumption per bed in hospitals. The second part involves the inspection of the opinions of hospital top technical managers regarding energy management in their hospitals and their knowledge in auditing procedures, energy efficiency barriers, awareness to energy management and percentage of expected amount of saved energy. The research delivers recommendations tailored to the health sector in Saudi Arabia that encourages implementing energy management programs in hospitals to save energy, increase energy efficiency and improve energy management awareness.

This thesis investigates three major aspects of energy consumption rebound effects (RE) in three papers. More specifically, the issues addressed are (i) the magnitude of economy-wide rebound effect (ii) the role of energy policy instruments in mitigating it and (iii) its channels of impact. The research begins with the estimation of cross-country economy-wide rebound effects for a panel of 55 countries over the period 1980 to 2010. A two-stage approach is utilized in which energy efficiency is first estimated from a stochastic input distance frontier (SIDF). The estimated energy efficiency is then used in a second stage dynamic panel model to derive short-run and long-run RE for an array of developing and developed countries. The cross-country point estimates indicate substantial RE magnitudes across sampled countries during the period under consideration, although a positive and encouraging finding is the declining RE trend across most of the sampled countries during the study period. The second paper contains an RE benchmark for 19 EU countries, as well as an investigation of the effects of two energy policy instruments (energy taxes and ener-gy R&D) on RE performance over the period 1995 to 2010. The results indicate that RE performance improved over the sample period, reinforcing the results from paper one. In addition, there is also some evidence suggesting that binding market-based instruments such as energy taxes have been more effective in restricting RE than in-direct instruments such as energy R&D during the period under consideration. This is consistent across both estimated model specifications. An important observation from the first essay is the slightly larger average RE across the non-OECD countries. For this reason, the last empirical chapter evaluated the channels through which RE stimulated energy use across productive sectors of major developing/emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and China. To achieve this, the essay relied on duality theory to decompose changes in energy demand into substitution and output effects through the estimation of a trans-log cost function using data spanning 1995-2009. Findings reveal that energy use elasticities across sampled sectors/countries are dominated by substitution effects. One intriguing result that also emerges from this analysis is the role of economies of scale and factor accumulation, rather than technical progress, in giving rise to eco-nomic growth and energy consumption in these countries during the period under consideration.