This research considers the motivating factors behind energy use in the residential sector, which in 2011 accounted for more than 26% of overall energy use in the UK. The study took a mixed method approach and considered case studies in both the UK and Australia, two countries with very different energy regimes. UK case studies were analysed using predictive energy modelling, quantitative assessment of actual energy use and thermal comfort, and qualitative interview and focus group assessment of individual motivation around energy use. The Australian case studies were assessed qualitatively and their attitudes compared to the UK core group. Additional perspectives were gained through interviews with UK landlords, a large environmental group, a senior politician, and two senior policymakers from a large energy company. The investigation assesses the implied importance of the key strands developed from previous research in instigating changes in behaviour amongst occupants. These include psychological, social, financial, educational and regulatory factors. In particular, it looks at the ineffectiveness of the Green Deal on energy behaviour in the residential sector. The research offers a reasoned explanation as to why it is important to record predictive, actual, and intended behaviour with regard to energy use. The study concludes that a variety of incentives are necessary to encourage behaviour change, and that the complexity of occupant behaviour makes it difficult to develop a single policy to encourage more sustainable energy use. There is sometimes a disconnect between intention and behaviour. However, there seems to be a certain commonality among the occupants, in that their behaviour around energy is often other than predicted by conventional economics and more likely to incorporate predictions from behavioural economics. This is recognised by the case study participants in both the UK and Australia, and they largely agree on the beneficial role of government in regulating them and "nudging" them in the right direction with regard to influencing their motivations around energy use. Financial incentives are also a key driver in motivating residents to use energy more sustainably, but they need to be carefully aligned to suit a wide range of individuals. Another issue that became clear in the research is that policy focusing purely on energy efficiency can be ineffective, if the policy goal is to mitigate the effects of climate change. The rebound effect is likely to result in a lower demand for residential energy transferring to increased demand for energy elsewhere in the economy. The study recommends that policy should focus on sustainable energy use, using financial and other mechanisms to discourage the use of fossil fuels.

There is a large potential in making the residential and service sector more energy efficient and the first step towards achieving a more efficient use of energy is to implement an energy audit. In this study a property with an approximate area of 8 000 m2, consisting of a main building and three building extensions from different eras has been examined. The main building and its extensions were built in different stages and the first one in the early 20th century and some parts of the last building extension were modified at the time that the examination was carried out. This indicates that there is a vast energy savings potential in the property and an energy audit was performed. The main aim of the study was to examine where the energy was being used and where energy could be saved. Energy saving measures has been suggested together with a calculated approximate energy decrease and payback period. The total energy savings potential for the measures is approximately 146 MWh. The energy audit showed that a large amount of electricity was being used during non-work hours and that energy was lost through the building envelope. The electricity use during non-work hours was examined during the night walk, however, it is suggested to carry out further examinations regarding the property’s vast electricity use during non-work hours. To add loose wool in the roof of B2 has an energy savings potential of 33 000 kWh/year. Another measure is to clean the heat exchangers, this measure has an energy savings potential of 26 000 kWh/year. Also it is suggested to optimize the operational hours for the lighting by implementing presence control and to decrease the energy use for ventilation by cleaning the heat exchangers. Further examinations that would improve the study would be to do measurements of the electricity and temperatures to get a better understanding of the buildings energy use. Also to model the building in a simulation tool would give a calculated energy loss that is more like the actual energy loss of the building and make the results more reliable.

Complete overview of energy use in a residential building is depends on many different factors. When analyzing proper and effective ways for energy reducing/conserving systems, often times only technological solutions for households appliances are considered. Human behavior has been shown to be an important factor affecting the overall energy use in the household. Many aspects of energy use are directly connected to user behavior and are affected by how the user utilizes available systems. This paper focuses on describing the mean influencing causes of human environmental psychology based on study on a Swedish suburb community, called Fårdala. User behaviors and actions affecting residential energy use are analyzed and presented in form of eleven (11) abstract triggers to households energy use. Finally an energy monitoring system based on the findings are purposed. What is found from study on human psychology, shows that human behavior is mainly controlled by three (3) key categories of behavior. Conscious/voluntary behavior, Socio-environmental/cultural based behavior and Systemic/learned behavior. Out of the three, while the last one poses as most influential on behavior related energy use, it is also the hardest to affect and change. To effectively counteract the negative effects of user behavior on residential energy use, energy saving devices should react more accordingly to the users and offer engagement. Such a system is an energy monitoring device, which allows for a “double-sided” communication with the user. The user is presented with relevant information about real-time energy use of all of the systems and is able to make changes on the fly. The system should also be able to learn and apply energy saving actions based on user behavior.

The road to energy-efficient housing is not without cracks and potholes. Many building stakeholders have pointed to the discrepancies that exist between simulated and measured efficiency results, where some have called it a post-occupancy gap, others have called it an energy efficiency information gap. The research presented in this thesis addresses that gap by detailing the results of two exploratory case studies of affordable housing projects in Virginia across three manuscripts. The data utilized in the first manuscript includes measured data collected at the second level through the NEXI energy monitoring and feedback device, wherein we used descriptive statistics to investigate the impact of temperature on energy use over different timeframes. We had anticipated our findings may not all be consistent with previously existing studies. We found this to be true in many cases, but we also discovered interesting contradictions to our assumptions. This study thereby investigates the gap in energy performance within net-zero buildings and contributes to the existing body of literature by presenting the findings of this unique study. The data utilized in Manuscript 2 and Manuscript 3 was utility data, which was reported as end-of-use monthly consumption values. We were able to investigate the impact of 3 different HVAC systems energy use by evaluating the energy and cost performance before and after the installation of newer, more efficient systems. We found that although all systems were performing below anticipated standards, the one-stage system outperformed in terms of efficiency, and the second-stage system outperformed in terms of cost. The findings in these studies emphasize the importance of energy education for residents to achieve greater efficiency gains. / Master of Science / Humans are complex beings; hence the buildings they inhabit are complex systems. While breakthroughs in simulating, designing, and constructing high-performance buildings as well as advanced energy use technologies have been promising, many have fallen short of their ambitious goals primarily due to the complexity of building occupant behavior. Achieving energy efficiency requires thorough research before design and construction, the use of advanced technologies, and the incorporation of behavior-driven energy use dynamics. Furthermore, with the breadth of literature to support the delivery of individualized energy information in real-time to residents comes the opportunity to investigate further the impact of advanced technologies in high performing buildings that have fallen short of their optimistic design goals. This thesis consists of three manuscripts, which describe two exploratory case studies of high-performance residential homes in Virginia's affordable housing sector. The first manuscript, a journal paper, investigates the individual HVAC energy use of six senior residents, wherein we explore the interplay between temperature, energy use, and age across different timeframes. We find that, across different timeframes, energy use for senior citizens remains relatively consistent in high-performance homes. The second and third manuscripts are conference papers, which have been presented on and published in the respective conference proceedings. We quantitively investigated the energy performance of energy-efficient HVAC systems and compared predicted results and measured results. In conclusion, we hope to contribute to the body of literature, which investigates shortcomings in achieving energy-efficiency within high-performance homes.

Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia para a determinação do potencial de conservação de energia elétrica de usos finais, orientada para a análise de instalações de ensino, aplicável, também, a instalações comerciais em geral. Os usos finais considerados no trabalho são: iluminação, ar condicionado, microcomputadores pessoais e outros equipamentos elétricos. São apresentados procedimentos para o levantamento de dados e para a determinação do potencial de conservação de energia elétrica de cada uso final analisado, além de uma metodologia estatística para a análise de contas de energia elétrica. São definidos, também, indicadores do uso de energia elétrica bastante úteis em diagnósticos energéticos, permitindo estimar o potencial de conservação da instalação a partir da análise comparativa de seus índices com valores típicos obtidos em outros diagnósticos energéticos ou em publicações especializadas. A aplicação prática da metodologia é apresentada na forma de um estudo de caso, realizado em 1996 na Cidade Universitária Armando de Salles Oliveira - CUASO, o maior campus da Universidade de São Paulo – USP e um dos maiores do Brasil, localizado na cidade de São Paulo. Um volume considerável de informações é analisado e discutido em detalhes, fornecendo dados globais e desagregados em usos finais sobre as características de consumo e os potenciais de conservação de energia elétrica do campus. / This work presents a methodology for determining the potential of electric energy conservation of electricity end uses. The methodology is oriented to university premises, but it is also applicable to other types of installations. End uses considered in this work include lighting, air conditioning, personal computers and other electric devices. Procedures for data gathering and determination of conservation potential of each end use are presented. A statistical methodology for analyzing electricity bills is also presented. Furthermore, some useful indicators for energy diagnoses are developed. These indicators allow the estimation of the conservation potential of a given installation through comparison with typical values extracted from the other energy diagnoses or technical literature. The proposed methodology was applied in the main campus of University of São Paulo – USP, one of the largest in Brazil with some 30,000 undergraduate students. A large amount of data is analyzed and discussed, yielding global and specific indicators regarding end use characteristics and conservation potential within the campus.

In accordance with the main aim of the study, a widely accessible, modifiable tool was created for parties interested in maintaining the national electricity supply network and parties interested in informing policy on plug-in vehicle adoption schemes and recharging behaviour control. The Parry Tool enables the user to incorporate present limits to plug-in vehicle recharging demand scheduling as imposed by the state of present technology (no third party mechanism for monitoring and control of recharging), present human travel behaviour needs and existing patterns in electricity usage; into the investigation of the impacts of recharging demand impacts and the design of mitigation measures for deflecting (parrying) worst case scenarios. The second aim of the project was to demonstrate the application of the Parry Tool. The multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary information gathered by the Parry Tool was used to produce national demand profiles for plug-in vehicle recharging demand, calculated using socioeconomic and travel behaviour-estimated population sizes for plug-in eligible vehicles and vehicle usage patterns, which were added to existing national electricity demand for a chosen test week – this was the first scenario subsequently tested. The information gathered by the Parry Tool was then used to inform the design of two demand management methods for plug-in vehicle recharging: Recharging Regimes and weekly recharging load-shifting – these were the second and third scenarios subsequently tested. Unmitigated simultaneous recharging demand in scenario 1 (all vehicles assumed to recharge at home upon arrival home every day) severely exacerbated peak demand, raising it by 20% above the highest peak in existing demand for the year 2009 over half an hour from 58,554 MW to 70,012 MW – a challenge to the generation sector. This increased the difference between daily demand minima and maxima and made the new total demand have sharper peaks – a challenge for grid regulators. Recharging Regimes in scenario 2 split the estimated national plug-in vehicle populations into groups of different sizes that started recharging at different times of the day, with the word ‘regime’ being applied because the spread of start times changed over the course of the test week from workdays to weekend. This avoided exacerbation of the peak and reduced the difference between daily demand minima and maxima by raising minima, providing a load-levelling service. Scenario 3 embellished the Recharging Regimes with workday-to-weekend recharging load-shifting that therefore took better advantage of the often overlooked weekly pattern in existing demand (demand being higher on workdays than weekends), by allowing partial recharging of a segment of the plug-in vehicle population. Limited consideration of the impact of changing vehicle energy usage (for which distance travelled was assumed to proxy in this study) showed that the more vehicles used their batteries during the day, the better the levelling effect offered by Recharging Regimes. Greater utilisation of battery capacity each day, however, can also be assumed to lessen the potential for workday-to-weekend load levelling, because load-shifting depends upon vehicles being able to partially recharge or defer recharging to later days and still meet their travel needs plus keep a reserve State Of Charge (SOC) for emergency and other unplanned travel. Whilst altering vehicle energy usage did not change the finding that unmitigated simultaneous recharging exacerbated existing peak demand, it was noted that when limited mileage variation was considered this sharpened the profile of total demand – the rise and fall of the new peak far steeper than that of the original peak in existing demand. The Parry Tool combines a series of integrated methods, several of which are new contributions to the field that use UK data archives but may potentially be adapted by researchers looking at energy issues in other nations. It presents a novel fossil-fuel based justification for targeting road transport – acknowledging energy use of fossil fuel as the originator of many global and local problems, the importance of non-energy use of petroleum products and subsequent conflicts of interest for use, and a fossil fuel dependency based well-to-wheel assessment for UK road transport for the two energy pathways: electricity and petroleum products. It presents a method for the recalculation and ranking of top energy use/users using national energy use statistics that better highlights the importance of the electricity industry. It also presents the first publicly documented method for the direct consultation and extraction of vehicle-focused statistics from the people-focused National Travel Survey database, including a travel behaviour and household income-based assessment of plug-in vehicle eligibility, used to scale up to national estimates for battery electric and plug-in electric hybrid vehicle (BEV and PHEV) national population sizes. The work presented here is meant to allow the reader to perceive the potential benefits of using several resources in combination. It details the Parry Tool, a framework for doing so, and where necessary provides methods for data analysis to suit. It should however be noted that methods were kept as simple as possible so as to be easily followed by non-specialists and researchers entering the field from other disciplines. Methods are also predominantly data-exploratory in nature: strong conclusions therefore should not be drawn. Rather, the work here should be seen as a guideline for future work that may more rigorously study these combined topics and the impacts they may have upon plug-in vehicle ownership, usage behaviour, impacts of recharging upon the national network and the design of mitigation measures to cope with this new demand.

Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia para a determinação do potencial de conservação de energia elétrica de usos finais, orientada para a análise de instalações de ensino, aplicável, também, a instalações comerciais em geral. Os usos finais considerados no trabalho são: iluminação, ar condicionado, microcomputadores pessoais e outros equipamentos elétricos. São apresentados procedimentos para o levantamento de dados e para a determinação do potencial de conservação de energia elétrica de cada uso final analisado, além de uma metodologia estatística para a análise de contas de energia elétrica. São definidos, também, indicadores do uso de energia elétrica bastante úteis em diagnósticos energéticos, permitindo estimar o potencial de conservação da instalação a partir da análise comparativa de seus índices com valores típicos obtidos em outros diagnósticos energéticos ou em publicações especializadas. A aplicação prática da metodologia é apresentada na forma de um estudo de caso, realizado em 1996 na Cidade Universitária Armando de Salles Oliveira - CUASO, o maior campus da Universidade de São Paulo – USP e um dos maiores do Brasil, localizado na cidade de São Paulo. Um volume considerável de informações é analisado e discutido em detalhes, fornecendo dados globais e desagregados em usos finais sobre as características de consumo e os potenciais de conservação de energia elétrica do campus. / This work presents a methodology for determining the potential of electric energy conservation of electricity end uses. The methodology is oriented to university premises, but it is also applicable to other types of installations. End uses considered in this work include lighting, air conditioning, personal computers and other electric devices. Procedures for data gathering and determination of conservation potential of each end use are presented. A statistical methodology for analyzing electricity bills is also presented. Furthermore, some useful indicators for energy diagnoses are developed. These indicators allow the estimation of the conservation potential of a given installation through comparison with typical values extracted from the other energy diagnoses or technical literature. The proposed methodology was applied in the main campus of University of São Paulo – USP, one of the largest in Brazil with some 30,000 undergraduate students. A large amount of data is analyzed and discussed, yielding global and specific indicators regarding end use characteristics and conservation potential within the campus.

The municipality of Uppsala together with eight constructors are currently planning a sustainable residential area in Östra Sala backe. The aim of this report is to identify the main factors that are important when calculating the specific energy use in an apartment building. Two previous similar projects, Västra Hamnen in the city of Malmö and Hammarby Sjöstad in the city of Stockholm, are studied and simulations in VIP-energy are performed. Sensitivity analyses concerning the indoor temperature, the efficiency of FTX-systems and the U-values of windows are also executed. The simulations are based on information from the constructors of Östra Sala backe, standard values and mean values from Västra Hamnen and Hammarby Sjöstad. The results show that differences between the estimated and measured values in specific energy use can reach about 50 %, or 25.2 kWh per m2 ATEMP and year, and that the efficiency of the FTX-system is the most important parameter.

Low-energy buildings have, in recent years, gained attention and moved towards a large-scale introduction in the residential sector. During this process, national and international criteria for energy use in buildings have become stricter and the European Union has through the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive imposed on member states to adapt their building regulations for ‘Nearly Zero Energy Buildings’, which by 2021 should be standard for new buildings. With a primary focus on new terraced and detached houses, this thesis analyses how the concept of low-energy buildings may be further developed to reduce the energy use in the residential sector. The main attention is on the technical performance in terms of indoor climate and heat consumption as well as on the market diffusion of low-energy buildings into the housing market. A multidisciplinary approach is applied, which here means that the concept of low-energy buildings is investigated from different perspectives as well as on different system levels. The thesis thus encompasses methods from both engineering and social sciences and approaches the studied areas through literature surveys, interviews, assessments and simulations. The thesis reveals how an increased process integration of the building’s energy system can improve the thermal comfort in low-energy buildings. Moreover, it makes use of learning algorithms – in this case artificial neural networks – to study how the heat consumption can be predicted in a low-energy building in the Swedish climate. The thesis further focuses on the low-energy building as an element in our society and it provides a market diffusion analysis to gain understanding of the contextualisation process. In addition, it suggests possible approaches to increase the market share of low-energy buildings. / <p>QC 20140321</p>

This thesis examines how the three urban development projects: Nydal, Norrtälje Harbor and Rosendal address the energy use in future buildings and how their energy strategies are articulated in relation to requirements specified in the SGBC’s certification system Citylab Action. The building Smaragden in Rosendal has been used as a model of a future building in the two other district areas in order to calculate the energy performance in each project, this by using the energy use simulation software IDA ICE. Further on the energy mix for each district area has been analyzed in order to determine the renewability rate for them. The results shows that the energy performance of Rosendal was 60,8 kWh/m2/year and the heat mix was only 7,92 % renewable. Nydal has an energy performance of 45,4 kWh/m2/year and their heat mix was 76,80 % renewable. Norrtälje Harbor had the energy performance of 70,9 kWh/m2/year and their heat mix had the renewability rate of 79,60 %. Comparing these three projects, the Nydal project was the most sustainable when it came to the energy performance since it had the lowest rate. Norrtälje Harbor had the highest percentage of renewable energy sources for their heat mix since they use almost 100 percent biofuels. Considering the Citylab Action certification, both Norrtälje Harbor and Rosendal have chosen to certificate their urban development projects according to Citylab. The Nydal project has not yet chosen the Citylab Action certification but they are considering the idea of following its principles anyway and may in the future get certificated according to Citylab Action. Looking at the energy strategies of Uppsala-, Norrtälje- and Knivsta municipality, Uppsala had the most structured energy strategy. They have specified clear goals, measures and follow-up process. Knivsta-and Norrtälje municipality are going to develop their energy strategies in the near future.