Estimating the air change rates in dwellings using a heat balance approach

Infiltration and ventilation rates in domestic buildings vary with construction type, weather conditions and the operation of openings in the fabric. Generating good estimates of ventilation is important for modelling, simulation and performance assessment as it has a significant impact on energy consumption. Physical tests can be applied to estimate leakage, but this is cumbersome and impractical to apply in most cases. This paper applies a heat balance approach to energy monitoring data to estimate a parameter that describes the combined ventilation and infiltration rates in real family homes. These estimates are compared with published values and a model is presented that describes the air change rate as a function of user behaviour (control of openings) and varying wind speed. The paper demonstrates that it is possible to estimate plausible air change rates from such data

Identifying the opportunities for ICT based energy demand reduction in family homes

It is widely recognised that the residential sector will play an important role in achieving UK national targets for reductions in energy consumption and CO2 production. This will be achieved through efficiency gains in devices, improvements to the building fabric and systems, more effective utilisation of devices and through accepting lower levels of comfort and convenience. Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) and other Information and Communication (ICT) based solutions are attractive because they offer help in managing device/systems and can be applied to reducing consumption while (potentially) mitigating the impact on comfort and lifestyle. This paper attempts to quantify the energy reduction potential for HEMS/ICT through a systematic treatment of monitoring data from real family homes. The analysis describes for the first time the notion of the ‘Reduction Effort Balance’ that exists between capital expenditure and acceptance of less comfort and convenience and it is demonstrated that HEMS/ICT could influence up to 50% of the possible energy demand reduction. The findings also suggest that it is highly unlikely that energy reduction targets will be met without changes to occupant lifestyle

Estimating the potential reductions in energy demand through efficiency, control and lifestyle change in a real home

In order for the UK to generate pathways to help deliver the near and long term CO2 reduction targets set by the Committee on Climate Change, a number of future scenarios were generated to simulate consumer responses to energy price changes based on economic background, developments in technology, fuel price and other assumptions. The overall carbon reductions anticipated by these scenarios lie between 40% and 90% by 2050, the domestic sector is expected to reduce emissions by 31% by 2020 and 60% by 2050. The question is how the residential sector will respond to the anticipated changes to the supply and demand for energy. There will be potential future CO2 reductions through the introduction of more efficient appliances and the implementation of more advanced heating controls, enabled through ICT 1. What is less clear is how far the benefits of efficiency and control will get us to these goals and to what degree people will have to make changes to their chosen way of living in the home. In this paper we ask, whether the answer to significant reduction in energy consumption lies with the acquisition of equipment, or the adaptation of family life. The approach has been to take whole house energy data from a real family home in 2013 and place it in three possible landscapes that look towards 2050. This model simulates energy consumption in 2050 by applying potential interventions to determine the effects of efficiency, control and more sustainable lifestyles