Browsing by Author "de Wilde, Pieter"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Citation - WoS: 0
Citation - Scopus: 0
Building Occupant Energy Labels (Oel): Capturing the Human Factors in Buildings for Energy Efficiency
(Mdpi, 2025) Harputlugil, Timucin; de Wilde, Pieter
Occupancy is one of the primary contributors to the energy performance gap, defined as the difference between actual and predicted energy usage, in buildings. This paper limits its scope to residential buildings, where occupant-centric consumption often goes unaccounted for in standard energy metrics. This paper starts from the hypothesis that a simple occupant energy efficiency label is needed to capture the essence of occupant behaviour. Such a label would help researchers and practitioners study a wide range of behavioural patterns and may better frame occupant interventions, potentially contributing more than expected to the field. Focusing on the residential sector, this research recognises that the complexity of occupant behaviour and its links to different scientific calculations requires that researchers deal with several intricate factors in their building performance assessments. Moreover, complexity arising from changing attitudes and behaviours-based on building typology, social environment, seasonal effects, and personal comfort levels-further complicates the challenge. Starting with these problems, this paper proposes a framework for an occupant energy labelling (OEL) model to overcome these issues. The contribution of the paper is twofold. Firstly, the literature is reviewed in depth to reveal current research related to occupant behaviour for labelling of humans based on their energy consumption. Secondly, a case study with energy simulations is implemented in the UK, using the CREST tool, to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of OEL. The results show that labelling occupants may help societies reduce building energy consumption by combining insights from energy statistics, surveys, and bills gathered with less effort, and can assist decision-makers in determining the best match between buildings and occupants. While the focus of this study is on residential buildings, future research is recommended to explore the applicability of OEL in office environments, where occupant behaviour and energy dynamics may differ significantly.
Citation - WoS: 120
Citation - Scopus: 132
The interaction between humans and buildings for energy efficiency: A critical review
(Elsevier, 2021) Harputlugil, Timucin; Harputlugil, Timuçin; de Wilde, Pieter; 40295; Mimarlık
Buildings consume energy for different purposes. One core function is to provide healthy and comfortable living conditions for the humans that inhabit these buildings. The associated energy use is significant: taken together, buildings are responsible for roughly 40% of the world's total annual energy consumption. This large percentage makes the built environment an important target for researchers, policy makers, innovators and others who aim to decrease energy consumption and the associated emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHG). Unfortunately, the significant body of research on energy efficient buildings conducted since the 1970s has had only a limited impact on the overall energy use of the sector, and this remains a serious concern. The energy use of buildings shows a strong correlation with the activities of the building occupants. A key factor that makes it hard to curb building energy use is a lack of understanding of building occupant behaviour. This paper reviews research on building occupant behaviour in two stages. The first stage reviews important issues, milestones, methodologies used, building types analysed and progress achieved related to the topic, as reported in the most frequently cited papers. The second stage focuses on recent work in the area and investigates `state of the art' developments in terms of questions asked and solutions proposed. The aim is to identify problems and knowledge gaps in the field for future projection. Recent research on the topic is analysed, taking account of methodologies, building types, locations, keywords, data sampling and survey size. Based on a critical analysis of the literature, the following outcomes can be reported: research on building occupant behaviour relies strongly on quantitative methods, but studies are mostly located in the northern hemisphere and in developed and high-income countries. The dominant research topics associated with occupant behaviour are energy demand and thermal comfort, followed by retrofit and renovation. Most research focuses on technical aspects rather than socio-economic issues. Current research is mostly limited to studies of single buildings and typically lacks data-gathering standards, which makes it hard to conduct cross cultural data comparisons. Most research concentrates on individual topics, such as window, door and blind adjustments, effects of Heating Ventilating Air Condition (HVAC) systems etc. and does not provide a wider, holistic view that can be linked to social and economic factors.