M e a s u r e d I n d o o r E n v i r o n m e n t a n d E n e r g y C o n s u m p t i o n
719
MEASURED INDOOR ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
CONSUMPTION COMPARED TO ACCEPTED STANDARDS: A
CASE STUDY HOME IN SOUTH AYRSHIRE, UK
Hasim Altan
1
, Mohamed Refaee
1
, Liangxiu Han
2
& Masa Noguchi
3
1
Building Environments Analysis Unit, School of Architecture, The University of Sheffield, UK,
2
School of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK,
3
Mackintosh School of Architecture, The Glasgow School of Art, UK
Abstract
Energy usage of households accounts for a significant portion of total energy
consumption and carbon emissions. Scottish homes today are highly energy consumers
emitting on average 3 tonnes of CO
2
per house annually and the amount exceeds the
UK average of 2.75 tonnes of CO
2
. Moreover, 26% of the households are actually facing
fuel poverty. It is therefore a critical task to efficiently manage and minimise energy
usage in housing in order to meet carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emission reduction and energy
consumption cut targets such as 80% overall cuts in carbon emissions by 2080 for the
UK, compared with 1990 levels. The study has been undertaken within the Zero Energy
Mass Custom Homes (ZEMCH) research network’s demonstration projects - e.g.
‘ZEMCH 109’. The house was intended to be built in South Ayrshire, Scotland, in early
2012, added to the adjacent existing post-council end-terraced house. As part of the
project, the Building Environments Analysis Unit (BEAU) research centre has conducted
a post occupancy monitoring of the energy and indoor environmental conditions (e.g.
indoor air temperature, relative humidity and CO
2
levels) in the Scottish affordable home
which will also continue even after the construction of the newly built extension and the
refurbishment of the existing home. It is important for the successful demonstration of
the ZEMCH 109 project that detailed monitoring and post occupancy evaluation (POE) of
the exiting NRGStyle home are performed sufficiently in order to investigate the
relationship between human behaviour and energy consumption, and the indoor
environmental conditions.
Keywords:
post occupancy evaluation, housing sector, indoor environment, energy
consumption, human behaviour.
Introduction
Generally in the UK, energy usage of households accounts for a significant portion of
total energy consumption and carbon emissions. Scottish homes today are highly energy
consumers emitting on average 3 tonnes of CO
2
per house annually and the amount
exceeds the UK average of 2.75 tonnes of CO
2
. Moreover, 26% of the households are
actually facing fuel poverty (SHCS 2011). It is therefore a critical task to efficiently
manage and minimise energy usage in housing in order to meet reductions in both
carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emission and energy consumption towards targets such as 80%
overall cuts in carbon emissions by 2080 for the UK, compared with 1990 levels.
Energy consumption of households basically depends on environmental and human
factors. Human factors are related to the user influence like the number of occupants,
the length of occupancy in the home and other aspects such as people with special heat
demand (like babies or older people), and the user behaviour such as temperature
choice or ventilation behaviour (Cadima 2009). The indoor environment is a complex
system including factors like thermal, visual, and acoustic conditions, indoor air quality,
