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The objective of this study is to quantify the extent to which variation in heating season indoor temperatures is explained by dwelling and household characteristics and increased by energy efficiency improvements in low income households. A survey of dwellings in the Warm Front home energy efficiency scheme was carried out in five urban areas of England. Half-hourly living room and main bedroom temperatures were recorded for 2-4 weeks over two winters. For each dwelling, regression of indoor on outdoor temperature was used to obtain estimates of daytime living room and night time bedroom temperatures under standardized conditions (outdoor temperature of 5 degrees C. The results indicate that the median standardized daytime living room temperature was 19.1 degrees C and the median standardized night time bedroom temperature 17.1 degrees C. Temperatures were influenced by property characteristics, including its age, construction and thermal efficiency and also by the household number of people and the age of the head of household. Dwellings that received both heating and insulation measures through the Warm Front scheme had daytime living room temperatures 1.6 degrees C higher than pre-intervention dwellings, night time bedroom temperatures were 2.8 degrees C higher. Warm Front energy efficiency improvements lead to substantial improvements of both living room and bedroom temperatures which are likely to have benefits in terms of thermal comfort and well-being. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract To achieve sustainable development in all stages of society the participation of rural communities is essential. Rural communities are known to employ energy inefficient devices which lead to major energy depletion and this has a negative impact on sustainability. Exergy and sustainability analyses can be applied to highlight the relation between energy utilization and sustainability. Keeping this in mind, the current study focuses on the integration of conventional sectoral exergy analysis and sustainability analysis. Based on forecasted data between 2010 and 2050, a case study of Bangladesh's rural residential sector is investigated in terms of energy, exergy, and sustainability analyses. The energy efficiencies of this sector are found to vary between 18.96% and 31.53% while exergy efficiencies vary between 4.86% and 8.42%. Several exergetic sustainability indicators such as depletion number, sustainability index, environmental effect factor, waste exergy ratio, environmental destruction coefficient, environmental destruction index, and environmental benign index are used to highlight the sustainability of this sector. From the sustainability analysis, it is found that 95% of the fuel is depleted from this sector and it contributes to lower sustainability index of 1.05. Waste exergy ratio from biomass varies between 0.75 and 0.93. This sector has the highest environmental destruction index of 39.10 and lowest environmental benign index of 0.03. Efficient use of biomass resources, replacing old biomass stoves and developing energy policies using exergy can improve the sustainability of this sector.

In the UK, housing has been identified as a significant sector for contributing to the 80% reduction in emissions over the 1990 baseline by 2050, required by the Climate Change Act of 2008. However, pre-1919 housing stock is the least energy efficient and consequently poses challenges to meeting this target. Using a mixed methods approach, the current study demonstrates that, in actuality, there is a significant potential for reducing emissions among this sub-sector of housing, and that the major barriers to energy efficiency retrofits concern a lack of funding, the payback period for the investment, disruption to home life and finding a trustworthy and skilled installer. Moreover, this study finds that homeowners are motivated primarily by the desire to improve home comfort and aesthetics along with a reduction in energy bills rather than in reducing carbon emissions. The paper concludes with recommendations for improving the viability of retrofitting pre-1919 homes through enhanced financial resources, policy support and the promotion of social and economic benefits.

Abstract Developing countries face a crisis of deteriorating and unsafe human settlements conditions. Few studies examine the resources and energy required to provide everybody with decent housing. This study presents a generic methodology for the estimation of Life Cycle Energy (LCE) requirements to meet the housing gap and provide basic comfort to everybody in a developing country, based on standards of safety, durability and indoor temperature and humidity limits. The methodology includes the operationalization of this decent housing standard into materials and equipment; development of appropriate building archetypes; calculation of embodied and operating energy using a building simulation model; a parametric analysis to investigate the range of uncertainty in LCE and the attribution to different contextual conditions and energy savings measures. Results for the test case India showed that LCE of decent housing can significantly vary depending on climatic conditions, building typology, construction materials, technical equipment for space cooling-dehumidification and user behaviour. Embodied energy accounts for 27–53% of the LCE, depending on the building type and climate. LCE savings of up to 44% can be achieved with low embodied energy materials, building envelope insulation, ceiling fans and more efficient air-conditioning systems.

This paper investigates the indoor thermal conditions in fifty low income non air conditioned houses in Athens, Greece, during the extremely hot summer of 2007. Hourly indoor temperature data have been analysed during three extended heat waves. Indoor temperatures as high as 40 °C were recorded and the average indoor minimum temperature was always above 28 °C. Mean indoor temperatures during the hot season were up to 4.2 K above the normal climatic period, while the daily increase rate varied from 0.2 K/day during the first up to 0.8 K/day for the peak days of the heat wave. The exposure of inhabitants to high temperatures is very important because for almost 85% of the hot period, indoor temperature exceeded 30 °C. Periods of about 216 continuous hours above 30 °C, and six days above 33 °C were recorded in many buildings. The dynamics and the evolution of indoor temperatures as a function of the outdoor climatic characteristics and the thermal capacitance of the buildings are analysed. Possible techniques to improve the indoor environmental quality in low income housing during extremely hot periods are discussed.

Abstract Social housing sector is very important in Brazil, due to the necessity of expansion and investments being placed through a substantial government program. Residential buildings are expected to last at least 50 years according to Brazilian standards. Many residential projects in the sector already perform medium or poorly in terms of energy efficiency and thermal comfort today, and their designs are not analysed considering climate change. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the result of analysing the thermal and energy performance of social housing projects considering climate change, and to assess the impact on the operational phase of introducing energy efficiency measures in the sector, and exploring methods of adaptation to climate change. A representative project of the lower income sector housing was used as case study with the evaluation of measures through thermal and energy simulation with current and future weather files for the cities of Sao Paulo and Salvador. Results were compared using predicted energy consumption and cooling and heating degree-hours as indicators. The results highlighted some differences related to the climate scenarios and indicator analysed, and showed that the incorporation of energy efficiency measures in current social housing projects is of fundamental importance to minimize the effects of climate change in the coming decades.

a b s t r a c t Fuel poverty in Scotland is rising and is currently experienced in a quarter of households. Large-scale renewable generation does not reduce fuel poverty because citizens still have to pay for their imported energy. However, building-integrated solar systems do reduce the amount of energy imported into homes and have demonstrably already taken some families out of fuel poverty in Scotland. This study is of the solar potential of Dundee, a city with higher than average levels of fuel poverty. A review of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation presents the deprivation status of the population in the centre of the city. The total roof area practically available for solar integration was estimated using RoofRay software. Energy efficiency measures, combined with building integrated solar systems were shown to potentially eliminate fuel poverty in central Dundee. Energetic and economic analyses of the solar systems using TRNSYS software resulted in optimal PV/inverter system sizing ratios of 1.02 and 1.06, respectively. The solar water system optimally performed with a 230 L tank of 1 m height and an inlet fluid flow rate of 40 kg/h. The study indicates that city level solar installation programmes can help eliminate fuel poverty in Scotland at an acceptable cost. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In October 2022 British households entered a heating season amidst exceptionally high energy prices – squeezing household incomes and increasing fuel poverty. This study analyses electricity and gas consumption in 5594 households from October 2022 to March 2023 using XGBoost counterfactual models trained on historic data. With survey data collected in early 2023 we investigate how consumption reduction correlated with energy-saving actions, household and dwelling characteristics, and indicators of underheating and fuel poverty.Our analysis showed that electricity consumption was 8.4% lower and gas consumption 10.8% lower than the previous winter (accounting for weather), saving consumers around £29/month. Despite this and a government subsidy, energy bills were still around £34/month higher than the previous winter (£158/month (median); £500/month (95th percentile)); price elasticity was −0.10 for electricity and −0.07 for gas consumption. Greatest consumption reduction correlated with largest reported changes to heating practices, in particular heating for fewer hours and turning thermostats down lower. We find evidence of greater fuel poverty and underheating among the greatest energy reducers.This paper presents novel methods for analysing energy saving using smart meter data for changes without a control group, plus novel findings related to short-term price elasticity and the energy-saving impacts of behaviour change.