Beyond fabric: how heating practices can be incorporated into domestic energy modelling

Panel: 9. Dynamics of consumption

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Erica Marshall, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Julia Steinberger, Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Timothy Foxon, Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Valerie Dupont, Energy Research Institute (ERI), University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Abstract

It is widely demonstrated that the nature and state of a building’s fabric are only partly responsible for the amount of energy used in the building: the behaviour of occupants is also a significant factor. Domestic energy consumption has typically been modelled based on details of building fabric and average internal and external temperatures, with building use factors being included as assumptions for typical occupancy. The UK's Green Deal Occupancy Assessment is an example of an attempt within a policy instrument to include aspects of household occupants’ behaviour in its calculations, but this is limited in its ability to compare the effects of different heating practices.

In contrast to the engineering principles approach to domestic energy consumption, there is a growing recognition that energy is consumed in the provision of services such as thermally comfortable rooms, sustenance and hygiene. These energy services are delivered or attained through the performance of practices as defined in social practice theory. By including domestic heating practices as a way of delivering or attaining the service of thermal comfort within homes, aspects of building occupancy can be better included within domestic building energy modelling.

Within this paper, examples are given for how heating practices can be represented in dynamic building energy modelling; in some cases these can be achieved using existing model capabilities and in others, additional inputs and processes are required. These examples are illustrated for the case of heating control practices and the differences of heating energy consumption and temperature profile are shown. This article presents an improved methodology for modelling of domestic heating practices and illustrates this methodology with examples from the authors' own modelling work.