Energy performance and user’s behavior for residential buildings

Abstract

Occupant or user behavior is known to be one of the main factors of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use. Extended literature reviews linked the large performance gaps between residential buildings with the same properties and similar climate conditions to the way occupants interact with the building envelope and systems. Furthermore, in the last decades, more stringent energy codes have led to energy efficient design strategies with the aim of finally reaching the nearly-zero energy target. The success of these strategies is now heavily dependent on how the occupants interact with the building, or rather, on the energy-related lifestyles they undertake, the building location, the climate and the surrounding environment. All these factors affect residential energy performance and are analyzed leading to a further analysis of improvement methods. According to the analyzed factors and improvement, the project employs a building simulation and comparison of two buildings to demonstrate the potential impact of different user behavior lifestyles on the energy use of a Mediterranean residential building. The results are analyzed leading to the conclusion of how different much can different user behavior affect energy use with real world data. Improvement methods for this comparison are proposed as well as methods to implement them.