63 research outputs found
What’s Missing in Theories of the Residential Energy User
Residential energy use has been envisioned in varied ways, each highlighting different factors and capturing a partial truth. This paper outlines assumptions of core theories about household energy use. It gives an abbreviated list of major empirical findings framed by these theories. It then identifies a new set of blind spots created by overly-simple reliance on models and by data shortcomings that in combination may block development of a more sophisticated understanding of energy use. Policies and program strategies, in turn, can become oriented toward simplistic approaches to change. We point to the need for improved interpretation and elaboration of existing theories, and accordingly toward richer comprehension of energy users and the dynamics of energy use, suitable to the wider policy world of climate change and sustainability that the energy use research field now faces
Post-Retrofit Residential Assessments
This study examined a range of factors influencing energy consumption in households that had participated in residential energy-efficiency upgrades. The study was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and was conducted by faculty and staff of Portland State University Center for Urban Studies and Department of Economics. This work was made possible through the assistance and support of the Energy Trust of Oregon (ETO), whose residential energy-efficiency programs provided the population from which the sample cases were drawn. All households in the study had participated in the ETO Home Performance with Energy Star (HPwES) program. A number of these had concurrently pursued measures through other ETO programs. Post-retrofit energy outcomes are rarely investigated on a house-by-house basis. Rather, aggregate changes are ordinarily the focus of program impact evaluations, with deviation from aggregate expectations chalked up to measurement error, the vagaries of weather and idiosyncrasies of occupants. However, understanding how homes perform post-retrofit on an individual basis can give important insights to increase energy savings at the participant and the programmatic level. Taking a more disaggregated approach, this study analyzed energy consumption data from before and after the retrofit activity and made comparisons with engineering estimates for the upgrades, to identify households that performed differently from what may have been expected based on the estimates. A statistical analysis using hierarchal linear models, which accounted for weather variations, was performed looking separately at gas and electrical use during the periods before and after upgrades took place. A more straightforward comparison of billing data for 12-month periods before and after the intervention was also performed, yielding the majority of the cases examined. The later approach allowed total energy use and costs to be assessed but did not account for weather variation. From this statistical analysis, 18 study participants were selected and interviewed. The participants completed an in-home interview covering a range of topics, including changes in occupancy and additional changes to the homes that may have affected energy use. The goal of the interviews was to identify factors that may have contributed to unusual energy performance. These factors were identified by their frequency of occurrence in outperforming or underperforming homes, or simply by identifying factors that had the largest impact on overall savings. The motivations and levels of satisfaction with the outcomes of the upgrades were covered in detail, as well as extensive discussions of behaviors pertaining to thermal control, lighting, water, and appliance use. Most of cases studied achieved substantial energy savings, although it was more common for the projected savings to be greater than the demonstrated savings. Two factors that played a very large role in savings variation were 1) changes in occupancy and 2) fenestration improvements outside of the incentive programs. Motivation for pursuing the upgrades (e.g., environmental sustainability vs. comfort or cost savings) did not seem to play any role in achieving savings. Participants generally were more concerned with maintaining aesthetics through lighting than comfort through heating or cooling. They also seemed more likely to turn the lights off when leaving a room than to turn the heat off when leaving the home
MISCELLANEOUS ELECTRICITY USE IN U.S. HOMES
ABSTRACT Historically, residential energy and carbon saving efforts have targeted conventional end uses such as water heating, lighting and refrigeration. The emergence of new household appliances has transformed energy use from a few large and easily identifiable end uses into a broad array of "miscellaneous" energy services. This group of so called miscellaneous appliances has been a major contributor to growth in electricity demand in the past two decades. We use industry shipment data, lifetimes, and wattage and usage estimates of over 90 individual products to construct a bottom-up end use model . The model is then used to analyze historical and forecasted growth trends, and to identify the largest individual products within the miscellaneous end use. We also use the end use model to identify and analyze policy priorities. Our forecast projects that over the period 1996 to 2010, miscellaneous consumption will increase 115 TWh, accounting for over 90% of future residential electricity growth. A large portion of this growth will be due to halogen torchiere lamps and consumer electronics, making these two components of miscellaneous electricity a particularly fertile area for efficiency programs. Approximately 20% (40 TWh) of residential miscellaneous electricity is "leaking electricity" or energy consumed by appliances when they are not performing their principal function. If the standby power of all appliances with a standby mode is reduced to one watt, the potential energy savings equal 21 TWh/yr, saving roughly $1-2 billion dollars annually
Transforming innovation for decarbonisation? Insights from combining complex systems and social practice perspectives
Technological innovations seem to be among the great promises for achieving the urgent modernisation of economies towards carbon-neutrality. Ranging from fusion energy, bio-based fuels, carbon capture and storage to PV panels and so-called smart energy systems, plenty of technologies promise to reduce use or greenhouse gas emissions of carbon based energy sources. This techno-centric view disregards to a great extent that technological change affects and is affected by societal practices and norms.
The present paper argues that contemporary methodological approaches informed by complex systems and social practices theories provide urgently needed insights into innovation for decarbonisation. It specifically addresses the following questions: Why are current conceptualisations of innovation narrowly framed and with what consequences? How would a framing of innovation grounded on complex systems and social practice theories improve the understanding of opportunities and challenges at stake with innovation for decarbonisation? How could this framing help uncover and deploy an important and still often neglected social innovation potential? In a nutshell, the authors advocate for research and policy agendas that are firmly grounded in social practices and take complex and dynamic interactions of energy supply and demand as departing point to seriously reflect about the transitions that are put before us
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Case study of CalSTRS headquarters
It is a widely accepted fact that buildings must use less energy and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to help mitigate global climate change. At the same time, buildings are for people: to succeed they must also provide environments that suit their intended occupants. Researchers usually consider these two criteria – reducing GHG emissions and providing good environments for their occupants -- separately despite their close relationship; buildings generally require energy and emit GHGs to produce suitable environments. This building performance case study presents findings about energy use and occupant sentiment together, seeking to uncover new relationships between the two concerns. It considers the designers, owners, operators and occupants’ contributions and relationship to energy use in the California State Teachers Retirement System(CalSTRS) Headquarters building in West Sacramento, California. More specifically, the study investigates how the design and operations processes contribute to the building’s low source energy use intensity, as indicated by its ENERGY STAR rating of 95, while maintaining high occupant satisfaction ratings for building features and indoor environmental quality (IEQ.) The study reviews these satisfaction ratings in light of the low measured energy intensity.This report addresses issues commonly observed in green building design and operations; and the recommendations it includes suggest ways to enhance the design process, improve operations efficiency and increase occupant satisfaction. For these reasons, this report is particularly useful to designers of green office buildings and members of organizations that own and/or operate office buildings.Findings were developed from surveys and interviews of building occupants, building operators, owners’ representatives and facilities staff. These surveys and interviews were performed during spring 2011 and were conducted in close collaboration with Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK) staff. The project was a collaboration between Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, and PortlandState University.The report proceeds as follows. We begin with a description of the building and its physical context, followed by a discussion of the data and methods used. A discussion of findings is next. Findings related to building performance are presented first, followed by findings related to operations. A summary completes the repor
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Using text analysis to listen to building users.
This paper reports on analysis of open-ended survey responses in a commercial building occupant indoor environment satisfaction survey database maintained by UC Berkeley. Building on past analyses of Likert-scale satisfaction ratings and categories of dissatisfaction on acoustics, temperature, lighting and overall building and workspace, we use text analysis software to enrich understanding of occupants’ perspectives on what matters about the buildings they work in, and why. These comments detail interactions between occupants and their physical environment, and reflect on expectations, stress, and concerns that lie outside dimension-by-dimension assessments of physical building characteristics. They thus speak to gaps between theories of how buildings work for their occupants and experiences of how they actually do. Together they assert the importance of user-centered views that are currently known through anecdote but poorly incorporated in more clinical or topdown views of building environments
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Text mining for occupant perspectives on the physical workplace
This paper reports on analysis of open-ended survey responses from a commercial building indoor environment satisfaction survey database maintained by the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment. Building from satisfaction ratings and standardised categorical responses collected in surveys for 192 U.S. office buildings, text analysis software is used to analyse text responses to open-ended survey questions, focusing on occupants’ perspectives on the workplace and building overall, temperature, and acoustics. These occupant texts detail interactions between occupants and their physical environment in a technical sense but also interpret these interactions, assess their consequences, and reflect on social relationships and other matters that lie outside dimension-by-dimension assessments of the physical environment. Viewed together these texts reveal a user-centred perspective that points to issues that rest below the surface of more technical analyses of buildings, such as over airconditioning, worker stress and frustration, workplace usability, and relationships between physical and other aspects of the workplace. Attending to this perspective could lead to improvements in occupant experience, building and technology design, building operations, and survey research, as well as inform initiatives that require occupant adaptation and cooperation, including those for greenhouse gas emissions reductions
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Becoming allies: Combining social science and technological perspectives to improve energy research and policy making
Within the energy research community, social sciences tends to be viewed fairly narrowly, often as simply a marketing tool to change the behavior of consumers and decision makers, and to ''attack market barriers''. As we see it, social sciences, which draws on sociology, psychology, political science, business administration, and other academic disciplines, is capable of far more. A social science perspective can re-align questions in ways that can lead to the development of technologies and technology policy that are much stronger and potentially more successful than they would be otherwise. In most energy policies governing commercial buildings, the prevailing R and D directives are firmly rooted in a technology framework, one that is generally more quantitative and evaluative than that fostered by the social sciences. To illustrate how social science thinking would approach the goal of achieving high energy performance in the commercial building sector, they focus on the US Department of Energy's Roadmap for commercial buildings (DOE 2000) as a starting point. By ''deconstructing'' the four strategies provided by the Roadmap, they set the stage for proposing a closer partnership between advocates of technology-based and social science-based approaches
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Using text analysis to listen to building users.
This paper reports on analysis of open-ended survey responses in a commercial building occupant indoor environment satisfaction survey database maintained by UC Berkeley. Building on past analyses of Likert-scale satisfaction ratings and categories of dissatisfaction on acoustics, temperature, lighting and overall building and workspace, we use text analysis software to enrich understanding of occupants’ perspectives on what matters about the buildings they work in, and why. These comments detail interactions between occupants and their physical environment, and reflect on expectations, stress, and concerns that lie outside dimension-by-dimension assessments of physical building characteristics. They thus speak to gaps between theories of how buildings work for their occupants and experiences of how they actually do. Together they assert the importance of user-centered views that are currently known through anecdote but poorly incorporated in more clinical or topdown views of building environments
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