Energy performance analysis of residential buildings

There are many policies formulated by governments to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Evaluating the effectiveness of a proposed policy requires the consideration of complex interrelationships that exist among many variables such as the dwellings, occupants, and environment systems. As such, a system dynamics model is needed to simulate the intrinsic interrelationships between these variables. The paper reports the results of a holistic modeling approach developed based on the principle of socio-technical systems to analyze the effect of energy policies on energy consumption in residential buildings. The results indicate that energy consumption savings of 33.84, 38.96, 39, and 44.49% below the base year of 1990 are possible from the "economic," "behavioral change," "efficiency," and "integrated" scenarios respectively by 2050. The study concludes that it is unlikely for any one scenario to meet the required binding reductions of 80% cut in energy consumption levels by 2050, as targeted in the United Kingdom, unless this is vigorously pursued. One of the profound contributions to knowledge is that the developed model considers various qualitative conditions which are not usually simulated using the traditional regression-based forecasting of energy use in buildings.