Significance of occupancy patterns and habitual household adaptive behaviour on home-energy performance of post-war social-housing estate in the South-eastern Mediterranean climate: Energy policy design

The concept of retrofitting is an important milestone in the evolutionary development toward upgrading the energy efficiency of residential buildings. Various policy instruments have been introduced to retrofit existing social housing stock, many of which have failed to acknowledge the significant role of occupancy patterns in energy use. The aims of this empirical study are to statistically determine occupant behavioural patterns associated with heating and cooling energy consumption and to identify household socio-demographic characteristics that contribute to the development of energy-user profiles. This article presents the results of a questionnaire-based survey undertaken during August of 2018 with 118 households in base-case representative residential tower blocks in the South-Eastern Europe. The survey revealed weekday cooling consumption patterns were significantly and strongly related to weekend heating consumption patterns on weekends (χ² = 54,590, p < 0,001, Cramer's V = 0,522). These findings will lead to a greater understanding of how occupancy patterns can predict household energy use in decision-making processes related to energy-efficiency upgrades in dwellings. By exploring some of the core lessons learned from the survey, this research seeks to both inform and improve uptake-and-delivery of future retrofitting initiatives in energy policies.

This article is a research outcome of the PhD thesis entitled 'Assessing the Domestic Energy Use and Thermal Comfort of Occupants in a Post-war Social Housing Development Estate in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus.