An investigation into energy consumption behaviour and lifestyles in UK homes: Developing a smart application as a tool for reducing home energy use

The research asserts that several domestic retrofit programmes in the UK have not achieved the expected levels of energy saving. Energy consumption is not only reliant on physical characteristics of buildings, but also on the consideration of socio-cultural and economic factors. One of the issues is that the predicted home energy use does not reflect the actual energy consumed – a phenomena acknowledged as the ‘Building Performance Gap’. This research examines the factors that impact on domestic energy performance in response to this phenomenon. It adopts a concurrent mixed-method research design where the research method is primarily questionnaires to understand occupants’ energy consumption behaviour and lifestyle and develop a viable methodology to improve this. The solution could be the development of a smart application that addresses most energy consumption habits and behaviours connected to smart meters. As a result, occupants will be advised in real-time with appropriate energy-related behaviours if inefficient energy consumption is detected. Besides, the application will also comprise of a simplified Building Energy Simulation (BES) interface to provide building energy simulation results and evaluation. It is believed that this tool could potentially increase occupants’ awareness of energy consumption behaviour and reduce the Building Performance Gap.