Irrational homeowners? How aesthetics and heritage values influence thermal retrofit decisions in the United Kingdom

In order to reduce CO2 emissions in line with UK policy, existing UK homes need to be retrofitted to high thermal standards. A large proportion of these homes have traditional or aesthetically pleasing features which people are reluctant to compromise for the sake of thermal efficiency. A minority of such dwellings are protected by statute, but millions are not. There is a dearth of structured discussion on the issues owners of such homes face when planning thermal retrofits. This study begins with a literature review of sustainable development, heritage and aesthetics. It then reports the results of qualitative interviews with retrofitting owners of such homes in Cambridge, UK. It finds homeowners struggling to balance thermal issues against a range of heritage and aesthetic concerns which often overlap or clash. Homeowners develop their own logic in working these through, and their aesthetic convictions strongly influence what happens with retrofitting. The interviews suggest that concern for the heritage embodied in the housing stock can be one reason current policy does not always engage homeowners in retrofitting.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629615300566

Quantification of (p)rebound effects in retrofit policies - Why does it matter?

The ‘prebound effect’ characterises how average heating energy consumption in older homes is consistently lower than these buildings' calculated energy ratings, and helps explain why energy savings from thermal upgrades are often lower than anticipated. This paper explores the conceptual links between prebound and rebound effects and aims to quantify these behavioural effects. It applies the resulting mathematical model to empirical examples of actual and calculated energy consumption at scales of individual dwelling and national housing stock. These show that the rebound effect, as defined in econometrics literature, can only indicate proportionate reductions in energy consumption and can mask high levels of absolute consumption. The prebound effect, however, can identify under- and over-consumption regardless of rebound effects. A combination of high prebound effect and low income suggests fuel poverty, and the rebound effect here is less relevant regarding total energy consumption. Policymakers should identify housing with high prebound effects in order to eliminate fuel poverty, and be aware of inaccuracies in calculating payback time where economic viability of retrofits is mandated. Further research is needed to understand motivations and practices in households that have high prebound effects and to identify specific priority groups for thermal retrofit policy.The authors wish to thank Benoit Allibe, Marie-Helen Laurent and Jean-Narie Cayla of Electricite de France, for making data on French houses available for use in this paper.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.12.03

Investigating an Adequate Level of Modelling for Energy Analysis of Domestic Buildings

This paper investigates what level of modelling is required to appropriately support energy analysis of domestic buildings. The paper analyses the effect of simplications made in thermal zoning and internal loads scheduling through a case study of a UK domestic building. The case study provides quantified effects of common simplications made in practice on the accuracy of energy predictions by making simplications in the model incrementally and estimating the effect of individual simplications on electricity and heating demand predictions

Investigating an adequate level of modelling for retrofit decision-making: A case study of a British semi-detached house

This paper investigates what level of modelling (zoning or internal load scheduling) is required to support heating related retrofit decision-making. First, this paper tests the effect of thermal zoning by incrementally reducing the number of thermal zones from modelling every room as a separate zone to modelling the house as a single zone. Second, this paper examines the influence of internal load schedules (occupancy, lighting and equipment schedules) on prediction accuracy. Actual internal load schedules were derived from the smart meter data of 666 households collected by the Customer-Led Network Revolution project. Cluster analysis was applied to extract a set of prototypical schedules to capture major variations across all households. Last, this paper evaluates the effects of the zoning and internal load scheduling modelling assumptions in the context of thermal retrofit decision-making. For the specific parameters studied and the specific building design, the use of different zoning strategies and different internal load schedules yielded the same ranking of top retrofit options. For the specific climate and the baseline assumptions for the retrofits, different cluster schedules resulted in different magnitudes of energy savings, but the ranking of top retrofit options was not impacted by the choice of household internal load schedules. However, the actual internal load schedules affected the energy-saving potentials achievable by the same set of retrofit options. The case study highlights that the optimal set of retrofit options selected given the specific physical characteristics of a house is the same regardless of differences in the input of internal load schedules. However, it was found that energy-saving potentials achievable by the same retrofit option substantially vary according to the actual internal load schedules. This finding implies that energy retrofit policies can be tailored to target certain groups of households selected by clustering their actual energy use profiles to cost-effectively maximise energy savings from the domestic sector

Why Education and User Feedback Won’t Close the Performance Gap for University Accommodation

It’s often correctly stated that making buildings work requires an educated and engaged end user. This paper presents results from a study of user feedback in student accommodation. Students that volunteered their energy meter readings used 20% less energy than non-participants. However, this did not change before, during, or after the period of enhanced education and feedback. Furthermore, among those that stated higher awareness of energy issues throughout the study, there were no changes in their energy use habits. While it is no doubt true that education and feedback are useful in addressing the performance gap, this research finds two fundamental challenges to implementing such strategies: 1) most feedback is preaching to the converted, and 2) education does not necessarily correspond to action

Homely social practices, uncanny electricity demands: Class, culture and material dynamics in Pakistan

This research seeks to address the gap in studies of energy consumption in developing countries from a social science perspective. The research uses Social Practice Theory (SPT) to gain better understanding of homeowners’ practices and resulting electricity demand in middle-class households in Pakistan, with broader implications for other developing countries with similar climatic and socio-material contexts. Drawing on the works of Bourdieu (1984, 1997), Schatzki (2011) and Shove and Pantzar (2005), the study aims to unravel the connection between familiar domestic practices and the ‘uncanny’ electricity demand. Material and social constructs of ‘homely’ household practices related to comfort, lighting, cleanliness, cooking and ICT were studied in ten middle-class households in Lahore, Pakistan. The material arrays of the intermittent electricity provision system, modernistic prefigurations of spaces preferred by the middle-class and electrical appliances play an intrinsic role in shaping, and in turn being shaped by, everyday practices. Practices shaped by specific socio-cultural dimensions, such as social acceptance within the neighbourhood community, religious meanings, joint family structures, age disparities and gender segregation. The empirical study aims to further the conceptualisation of socially differentiated practices in domestic socio-material and cultural context of developing countries.The research was part of an on-going PhD sponsored by Cambridge Trus

Governing renewable energy transition in conflict contexts: investigating the institutional context in Palestine

AbstractIn response to pressures imposed on the energy sector, several countries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region have committed to increasing the percentage of renewable energy to reach 15–50% of the energy supply by 2030. New governance models are required to conceptualise and guide the energy transition into a more sustainable direction. Therefore, this paper employed the transition management governance framework to answer the questions of who is governing the renewable energy transition in Palestine, and in what ways it is achieved. The analysis is based on three levels: strategic (problem structuring and envisioning), tactical (coalition building, developing transition agenda), and operational (mobilising actors and implementing experiments). Accordingly, key energy-related institutions are examined in terms of their visions, capacities and scope of influence using semi-structured interviews, roundtable discussions, and a survey. The conducted policy analysis suggests that the Palestinian energy sector started experiencing profound changes that affected all actors who had to adapt or transform to remain active, in addition to the rise of various multi-level actors. The analysis also shows that actors are more connected compared to the conventional energy system. Findings suggest that the spread of renewable technologies was not the outcome of only top–down schemes; instead, it is achieved throughout the collaboration of multi-level institutions and increasing reliance on horizontal-based governance networks. The paper uses examples to imply that it is possible to overcome the agglomeration of restrictions imposed on the Palestinian energy sector due to conflict if established regimes support governance networks and local-level initiatives.</jats:p

Films as source of everyday life and energy use: a case of Indian cinema

Drawing from film studies, this paper introduces a new, experimental method to understand domestic practices and energy use at home at the exploratory research phase. The paper adopts the methodology of the AHRC CineMuseSpace project and applies it in the context of energy studies. A detailed keyword ontology was developed in order to identify practices, technologies and energy use at home (854 keywords). 19 Indian films, based in chawl housing in Mumbai, were analysed to illustrate the method. The keyword ontology was were applied to the extracted film fragments in the database. This allowed to map the presence and use of technologies in film, and where and how practices were performed. The analysis was followed by site observations guided by the film analysis, and re-watching the films using the embodied knowledge from site. The analysis Coding allowed us to make the choice of fragments transparent, quantify frequences and locations of practices, household dynamics and the use of appliances, to identify key scenes for further analaysis and create a database that can be resampled. The paper argues that even fictional films are firmly grounded in everyday life and routines and especially fragments that are used to portray ‘normalised’ being at home can be used as an unused source to study everyday life at home, transitions in material culture and the adoption of new technologies. The novelty of the research lies in its’ methodological approach to use film data as a reflective tool to understand energy consumption patterns and help to formulate exciting, relevant research questions for fieldwork. It highlights the importance of arts and humanities research in mediating and humanising often highly technical approach of energy studies.Research England GCRF QR Funding 2018-1

Grounded reality meets machine learning: A deep-narrative analysis framework for energy policy research

Text-based data sources like narratives and stories have become increasingly popular as critical insight generator in energy research and social science. However, their implications in policy application usually remain superficial and fail to fully explo

Performance gap? energy, health and comfort needs in buildings

Research on performance gap suggests that the actual energy consumption in buildings can be twice as much as expected. Energy models rely on predictive indicators and assumptions that are usually done at design stage, without acknowledging behavioural patterns of actual users. Moreover, in the context of performance gap, it is evident that energy efficiency is overemphasised while other key issues such as health and comfort of occupants, indoor air quality, noise levels etc. have been less stressed and discussed. This paper discusses the performance gap using surveys and physical measurements in a case study building at the University of Cambridge and reports findings of a research workshop with graduate students working on environmental performances of the built environment. The workshop addressed research issues related to energy, comfort and health, used as a method to understand the complexities of and trade-off between different aspects of sustainable buildings. According to the results, it is possible to balance energy, health and comfort needs in building projects. Lessons can be learned from the university’s old and new building projects to inform future research and policies