Shi, Wei and Elsharkawy, Heba (2017) An innovative energy efficiency application development: through the evaluation of occupants’ behavioural issues and its impact on domestic energy consumption in the UK. In: International Conference for Sustainable Design of the Built Environment (SDBE 2017); 20-21 Dec 2017, London, U.K.. (Unpublished)
Abstract
The research investigates the reason why low-carbon retrofit programmes always may not meet expectations. It is explored by focusing on a series of 'hard-to-quantify' factors, especially the energy-related behaviours and their impact on energy performance. The research assumes that the abovementioned parameters have not been thoroughly taken into consideration for optimising domestic energy performance. This is also the cause of the phenomena of 'Building Performance Gap (BPG)'. To cope with this issue, the correlations between occupants' behaviours and energy performance are investigated by adopting a mixed research methodology where questionnaire survey and the review of energy efficiency tools were carried concurrently to collect and analyse quantitative and qualitative data. The data collected is mainly quantitative but supplemented by qualitative data from a few open questions and in-depth interviews. This paper primarily focuses on the research survey design and how the required data was collected and analysed to help achieve the research aim. The preliminary data analysis was also presented in order to draw a general picture of the conditions of social housing in London. The issues encountered during the distribution of the questionnaire were alsodiscussed in order to inform relevant future studies. At the end, the found correlations could help to form an innovative smart phone application in order to adjust occupants' energy-related behaviours and provide incentives in taking up the low-carbon retrofit projects. Thus, reducing the BPG and increase energy efficiency in the UK housing sector.
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