Abstract:
There are many factors which are understood to a ect domestic energy consumption,
including: occupant demographics such as age, income and family type, occupant
attitudes, peer networks and occupant-building interactions such as window opening,
heating and lighting patterns.
Both top-down and bottom-up modelling approaches have been used previously
to represent these behavioural factors and other domestic energy usage variables such
as dwelling construction. Top-down models were found to lack the granularity and
exibility to accurately portray the UK domestic energy sector from the perspective
of individual households. Conversely, bottom-up models were found to be more
applicable to behavioural factors due to their ability to model individual entities and
interactions. However, it was also identi ed that most current models only consider
building construction or occupant behaviour, with few combining the two.
This project aims to combine occupant behaviour and dwelling construction
variables by suggesting an agent-based model implementation schema to provide
insight into the domestic energy consumption system, with special interest in the
e ects of life-stage changes on the household and the e ect of peer networks on the
adoption of energy e ciency measures. Five `shock' groups are considered, namely,
households a ected by a recent: retirement, unemployment, new child, house move
or reduction in household size. A pilot survey was conducted in order to obtain
results to inform model design decisions and the results are discussed.
