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

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 socio-economic and cultural factors. One of the issues is that the predicted home energy use may not reflect the actual energy consumed - a phenomena acknowledged as the 'Building Performance Gap'. This study 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 connected to smart meters that addresses energy consumption habits and behaviour. As a result, occupants will be advised in 'real-time' with appropriate energy-related behaviour once inefficient energy consumption actions 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, reduce domestic energy consumption and ultimately reduce the Building Performance Gap (BPG).