scholarly journals Factors Driving Consumer Involvement in Energy Consumption and Energy-Efficient Purchasing Behavior: Evidence from Korean Residential Buildings

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soyoung Yoo ◽  
Jiyong Eom ◽  
Ingoo Han
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Green Technology ◽  
Consumer Involvement ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Technological Advances

The recent rapid transition in energy markets and technological advances in demand-side interventions has renewed attention on consumer behavior. A rich literature on potential factors affecting residential energy use or green technology adoption has highlighted the need to better understand the fundamental causes of consumer heterogeneity in buildings’ energy-related behavior. Unresolved questions such as which consumers are most likely to opt into demand-side management programs and what factors might explain the wide variation in behavioral responses to such programs make it difficult for policy-makers to develop cost-effective energy efficiency or demand response programs for residential buildings. This study extends the literature on involvement theory and energy-related behavior by proposing a holistic construct of household energy involvement (HEI) to represent consumers’ personal level of interest in energy services. Based on a survey of 5487 Korean households, it finds that HEI has a stronger association with consumer values, such as preferences for indoor thermal comfort and automation, than with socioeconomic or housing characteristics and demonstrates HEI’s potential as a reliable, integrated predictor of both energy consumption and energy-efficient purchases. The study illuminates the multifaceted influences that shape energy-related behavior in residential buildings and offers new tools to help utility regulators identify and profile viable market segments, improve the cost-effectiveness of their programs, and eventually promote urban sustainability.

Comparison of U.S. and Swiss Homes and Lifestyles

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Hutzel ◽  
Daphene C. Koch ◽  
Jason M. Kutch ◽  
Rudolf Furter
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Home Ownership ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Construction Costs ◽  
Engineering Technology ◽  
High Level

This case study compared U.S. and Swiss homes with the goal of identifying construction practices that are most beneficial in terms of energy efficiency and life cycle costs. The research was a collaboration between the Departments of Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) and Building Construction Management (BCM) at Purdue University and The Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences (HTA Lucerne) in Switzerland. The first phase of this project compared U.S. and Swiss approaches to low energy residential buildings. Construction costs and annual energy consumption were estimated using homes with a similar size and layout, but with specific changes to one or more features that affect overall energy use. The results show that a Swiss-style low-energy home is not cost-effective for Indiana in the short term, but could become attractive after a relatively long (40+ year) period of home ownership. Recognizing that technology by itself will not minimize energy consumption, a second part of the project explored cultural norms that influence energy use. A survey of U.S. and Swiss college students was used to compare lifestyles and energy habits. It was found with a high level of confidence that Swiss students are more energy conscious than their U.S. counterparts.

CoNNECT: Data Analytics for Energy Efficient Communities

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. A. Omitaomu ◽  
B. L. Bhaduri ◽  
C. S. Maness ◽  
J. B. Kodysh ◽  
A. M. Noranzyk
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Energy Usage ◽  
The Public ◽  
Utility Companies

Energy efficiency is the lowest cost option being promoted for achieving a sustainable energy policy. Thus, there have been some innovations to reduce residential and commercial energy usage. There have also been calls to the utility companies to give customers access to timely, useful, and actionable information about their energy use, in order to unleash additional innovations in homes and businesses. Hence, some web-based tools have been developed for the public to access and compare energy usage data. In order to advance on these efforts, we propose a data analytics framework called Citizen Engagement for Energy Efficient Communities (CoNNECT). On the one hand, CoNNECT will help households to understand (i) the patterns in their energy consumption over time and how those patterns correlate with weather data, (ii) how their monthly consumption compares to other households living in houses of similar size and age within the same geographic areas, and (iii) what other customers are doing to reduce their energy consumption. We hope that the availability of such data and analysis to the public will facilitate energy efficiency efforts in residential buildings. These capabilities formed the public portal of the CoNNECT framework. On the other hand, CoNNECT will help the utility companies to better understand their customers by making available to the utilities additional datasets that they naturally do not have access to, which could help them develop focused services for their customers. These additional capabilities are parts of the utility portal of the CoNNECT framework. In this paper, we describe the CoNNECT framework, the sources of the data used in its development, the functionalities of both the public and utility portals, and the application of empirical mode decomposition for decomposing usage signals into mode functions with the hope that such mode functions could help in clustering customers into unique groups and in developing guidelines for energy conservation.

scholarly journals Towards Sustainable Energy Retrofitting, a Simulation for Potential Energy Use Reduction in Residential Buildings in Palestine

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3876
Author(s):  
Sameh Monna ◽  
Adel Juaidi ◽  
Ramez Abdallah ◽  
Aiman Albatayneh ◽  
Patrick Dutournie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Water Heating ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Space Cooling ◽  
Cooling Loads

Since buildings are one of the major contributors to global warming, efforts should be intensified to make them more energy-efficient, particularly existing buildings. This research intends to analyze the energy savings from a suggested retrofitting program using energy simulation for typical existing residential buildings. For the assessment of the energy retrofitting program using computer simulation, the most commonly utilized residential building types were selected. The energy consumption of those selected residential buildings was assessed, and a baseline for evaluating energy retrofitting was established. Three levels of retrofitting programs were implemented. These levels were ordered by cost, with the first level being the least costly and the third level is the most expensive. The simulation models were created for two different types of buildings in three different climatic zones in Palestine. The findings suggest that water heating, space heating, space cooling, and electric lighting are the highest energy consumers in ordinary houses. Level one measures resulted in a 19–24 percent decrease in energy consumption due to reduced heating and cooling loads. The use of a combination of levels one and two resulted in a decrease of energy consumption for heating, cooling, and lighting by 50–57%. The use of the three levels resulted in a decrease of 71–80% in total energy usage for heating, cooling, lighting, water heating, and air conditioning.

scholarly journals Investigating Primary Factors Affecting Electricity Consumption in Non-Residential Buildings Using a Data-Driven Approach

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 4046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sooyoun Cho ◽  
Jeehang Lee ◽  
Jumi Baek ◽  
Gi-Seok Kim ◽  
Seung-Bok Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Simulation Analysis ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Electric Energy ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Major Effect ◽  
Measuring Instruments ◽  
Building Energy Consumption

Although the latest energy-efficient buildings use a large number of sensors and measuring instruments to predict consumption more accurately, it is generally not possible to identify which data are the most valuable or key for analysis among the tens of thousands of data points. This study selected the electric energy as a subset of total building energy consumption because it accounts for more than 65% of the total building energy consumption, and identified the variables that contribute to electric energy use. However, this study aimed to confirm data from a building using clustering in machine learning, instead of a calculation method from engineering simulation, to examine the variables that were identified and determine whether these variables had a strong correlation with energy consumption. Three different methods confirmed that the major variables related to electric energy consumption were significant. This research has significance because it was able to identify the factors in electric energy, accounting for more than half of the total building energy consumption, that had a major effect on energy consumption and revealed that these key variables alone, not the default values of many different items in simulation analysis, can ensure the reliable prediction of energy consumption.

scholarly journals Humidity-Sensitive Demand-Controlled Ventilation Applied to Multi-Unit Residential Building – Performance and Energy Consumption in Dfb Continental Climate

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerzy Sowa ◽  
Maciej Mijakowski
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Ventilation System ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Controlled Ventilation ◽  
Demand Controlled Ventilation ◽  
Continental Climate

A humidity-sensitive demand-controlled ventilation system is known for many years. It has been developed and commonly applied in regions with an oceanic climate. Some attempts were made to introduce this solution in Poland in a much severe continental climate. The article evaluates this system's performance and energy consumption applied in an 8-floor multi-unit residential building, virtual reference building described by the National Energy Conservation Agency NAPE, Poland. The simulations using the computer program CONTAM were performed for the whole hating season for Warsaw's climate. Besides passive stack ventilation that worked as a reference, two versions of humidity-sensitive demand-controlled ventilation were checked. The difference between them lies in applying the additional roof fans that convert the system to hybrid. The study confirmed that the application of demand-controlled ventilation in multi-unit residential buildings in a continental climate with warm summer (Dfb) leads to significant energy savings. However, the efforts to ensure acceptable indoor air quality require hybrid ventilation, which reduces the energy benefits. It is especially visible when primary energy use is analyzed.

scholarly journals ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS, LESS STRAIGHT FORWARD THEN PRESUMED

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Hens
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Low Voltage ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Energy Conserving ◽  
New Construction

Since the 1990s, the successive EU directives and related national or regional legislations require new construction and retrofits to be as much as possible energy-efficient. Several measures that should stepwise minimize the primary energy use for heating and cooling have become mandated as requirement. However, in reality, related predicted savings are not seen in practice. Two effects are responsible for that. The first one refers to dweller habits, which are more energy-conserving than the calculation tools presume. In fact, while in non-energy-efficient ones, habits on average result in up to a 50% lower end energy use for heating than predicted. That percentage drops to zero or it even turns negative in extremely energy-efficient residences. The second effect refers to problems with low-voltage distribution grids not designed to transport the peaks in electricity whensunny in summer. Through that, a part of converters has to be uncoupled now and then, which means less renewable electricity. This is illustrated by examples that in theory should be net-zero buildings due to the measures applied and the presence of enough photovoltaic cells (PV) on each roof. We can conclude that mandating extreme energy efficiency far beyond the present total optimum value for residential buildings looks questionable as a policy. However, despite that, governments and administrations still seem to require even more extreme measurements regarding energy efficiency.

scholarly journals Energy Efficient Lighting Design Criteria: Cost-Effective Solutions in an Industrial Environment

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank J. Agraz ◽  
John Maneri
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Lighting Design ◽  
Design Criteria ◽  
Lighting System ◽  
Light Levels

The continual rising cost of energy, existing outdated lighting technology, and inefficient lighting designs have given property owners the opportunity to improve their facilities by retrofitting their existing luminaires with an energy efficient lighting system. A lighting retrofit uses the existing electrical infrastructure to replace, relocate, or convert existing luminaires with the latest generation of cost-effective components. New lighting technology has emerged within the last 6 years that generates energy savings of 40% to 50% while maintaining existing light levels. These upgraded and field-tested solutions lower energy consumption, generate a healthy financial return on investment, and can improve both the quality and quantity of light in the task area. As with any other solution, a cost-effective lighting system must be designed and engineered carefully to accommodate the needs of each work space. Simply installing a new lamp into an existing luminaire will not necessarily guarantee substantial energy savings or an improved lighting environment. In any space that uses electric lighting, the lighting designer must evaluate potential solutions for energy consumption, maintenance concerns, delivered light levels, hostile environments, and the overall economic impact of installing and long-term operation of the new system. In this paper, the author will discuss energy efficient lighting design criteria and how a lighting designer properly engineers a retrofit project to deliver energy savings without sacrificing light levels. The discussion includes a summary of both traditional and emerging technologies, and the long-term impact on energy consumption, maintenance, return on investment, lighting quality, and delivered light levels. Paper published with permission.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Energy Consumption between Green Building Certified and Non-Certified Buildings in Korea

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sangtae No ◽  
Chungyeon Won
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Green Building ◽  
Seed Certification ◽  
Portal Site ◽  
Energy Evaluation ◽  
Public Data ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Energy Use Intensity

Although interest in and the importance of green building certification have increased, it is difficult to determine how much less energy the buildings actually consume after obtaining sustainability related certification, such as LEED in the USA, and G-SEED in Korea. Focusing on building energy evaluation, we compared and analyzed the energy evaluation items of LEED and G-SEED. In addition, from the Korean public data portal site, this study investigated the annual site energy consumption (electricity and gas) per floor area of non-residential buildings that obtained G-SEED certification in Korea. The energy consumption of non-certified general buildings was compared with the energy consumption of certified buildings. As a result of examining 84 samples of this study, non-residential buildings with G-SEED certification showed energy use intensity that was at least (35.5 to 48.9)% lower than that of uncertified buildings.

The Investigation of Residential Energy Consumption in Rural Areas Surrounding the Xi'an City

2011 ◽  
Vol 374-377 ◽  
pp. 316-321
Author(s):  
Mei He ◽  
Hua Guo ◽  
Jin Wu ◽  
Xin Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Solar Energy ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Space Heating ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Xi’An City

The main purpose that should be put in the first place on residential constructions in the rural areas is how to guide the consumers to build residential buildings that are energy effective, comfortable, cost effective, and with construction techniques that are appropriate for the local conditions. Before investigating residential buildings that are suitable for local conditions, we have to discover the local economic status and their living habit in depth. This article puts emphasis on to survey the relationship between dwelling habits and energy consumption in the rural areas, also, space heating and cooling method, the use of solar energy, marsh gas and any other renewable sources of energy, as well as the thermal environment of residential buildings are investigated and analyzed. we conclude that, in the rim of Xi'an city, most of the fuel sources for space heating in winter used in the rural areas are fireweed and cornstock. Most of the energy sources are crops waste materials that are not environmental friendly, thus, it's necessary to popularize the use of solar energy and marsh gas.

Role of Indoor Air Distribution in Performance of Heat Pump Systems in Energy-Efficient Residential Buildings

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali A. Jal-Alzadeh-Azar ◽  
Ren Anderson ◽  
Keith Gawlik
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Heat Pump ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Comfort Level ◽  
Air Distribution ◽  
Air Mixing ◽  
Heating Mode

This paper demonstrates the potential impact of indoor air distribution on the energy consumption of central HVAC systems with cognizance of human thermal comfort. The study focuses on a hypothetical high-performance house incorporating a split heat pump system. The air distribution of this building incorporates high sidewall supply-air registers and near-floor, wall-mounted return-air grilles. Heating-mode stratification resulting from this prevalent configuration is a prime example of situations in which challenges regarding energy efficiency, comfort, and ventilation effectiveness emerge. These challenges underline the importance of adopting a comprehensive design strategy for high-performance buildings. Two indoor air distribution scenarios were analyzed: (1) theoretically well mixed and (2) poorly mixed, representing a realistic case. The former scenario was evaluated using an analytical approach, whereas the latter was investigated through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. For heating mode, the results indicated the presence of a pronounced thermal stratification resulting from poor air mixing. At 50% of the design heating load, for the well-mixed case, the HVAC system energy consumption was significantly higher. Considerably better air distribution performance was observed with cooling mode, in which the relative energy penalty for the well-mixed scenario was noticeably less. In real-world applications where measures must be taken to achieve near perfectly mixed indoor conditions for better comfort, the energy use is expected to be even higher. However, in the absence of such measures, the thermostat setpoint is likely to be readjusted, leading to a higher energy use without necessarily improving the overall comfort level, as demonstrated in this paper. The limitation of increasing the supply-air flow rate to enhance air mixing and diffusion is also discussed in terms of the system moisture removal capability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document