Issue |
Renew. Energy Environ. Sustain.
Volume 2, 2017
Sustainable energy systems for the future
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 44 | |
Number of page(s) | 8 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/rees/2017018 | |
Published online | 13 October 2017 |
Research Article
Influence of occupancy on building energy performance: a case study from social housing dwellings in Perth, Western Australia
School of Engineering and Information Technology, Murdoch University,
Perth,
Western Australia, Australia
* e-mail: p.esmaeilimoakher@murdoch.edu.au
Received:
27
February
2017
Received in final form:
4
July
2017
Accepted:
4
July
2017
Worldwide, the residential sector is a substantial energy consumer mainly due to the requirements of space heating and cooling, lighting and electronic appliances in the building. In Australia, the residential sector accounts for a significant proportion of final energy consumption, with a significant proportion of this energy attributed to space conditioning. Appliances including lighting, refrigeration, water heating, cooking and standby power also factoring into the energy used in Australian households. In response to sharp rises in energy prices in recent years, many households are taking steps to reduce their energy consumption. Many are investing in energy efficient appliances, home upgrades, installing rooftop solar panels, etc. However, low income can become a barrier, preventing many people from investing in energy efficiency as a way of reducing costs. This paper is a part of a broader study aiming to identify the areas of energy inefficiency in social housing dwellings, and improve the overall efficiency through modifying occupants’ energy use culture. The firsthand information on where and how energy is used in the dwellings was collected through conducting walk-through energy audits in the sample dwellings. This information was then combined with the information provided by the households’ representatives on the time of use of their appliances as well as direct observations to calculate energy consumption in these households. Practical guidelines were then proposed, taking into account their energy use behaviour to minimize their energy consumption at a minimum cost.
© P. Esmaeilimoakher et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2017
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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