Search results

The Energy World exhibition of low energy houses held at Milton Keynes towards the end of summer 1986 focussed much attention on the subject of energy‐efficient design in housing both in terms of what is considered technically and economically viable now, and what may become so in the future. Organised by Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) and sponsored by Anglian Building Society, Energy World formed the biggest single event in Energy Efficiency year, attracting over 70,000 visitors from the UK and abroad. A total of 53 energy‐efficient houses was exhibited by 33 private developers, ranging from small local firms to nationally‐known volume builders, with a further five house types exhibited by MKDC as part of its shared ownership programme. (Shared ownership houses are those where the occupier purchases a portion of the equity and rents the remainder.) The exhibition was not an isolated event however. It has followed several years of experience with low‐energy housing projects in Milton Keynes, and formed the launch‐pad for the much larger Energy Park development currently under construction. This seven‐year project will combine the experience gained to date with further innovative techniques and procedures to apply the principles of energy‐efficient design on a community‐wide basis. The 300‐acre site will comprise employment areas, housing parkland and a range of community facilities. It will eventually house 3,000 people and provide employment for 2,000.

In recent years, energy efficiency is a topic of growing importance not only on the political agenda of many Western countries, but also in the management of individual housing providers in these countries. Although there are many publications on how these organisations take up the topic of energy efficiency in their policies and activities, not so much has been written about the progress in policy in the national housing sectors as a whole. This paper presents the results of an investigation about the policy developments in the non-profit housing sector in the Netherlands, in which the present situation is compared with that of four years ago. Where did the Dutch non-profit housing providers stand in their policy development concerning energy efficiency, and where do they stand now? Have they become more ambitious or less ambitious? The paper also deals with the main stimuli and barriers that the non-profit housing providers have perceived. The findings show a progress in policy in the period under investigation, but this progress seems too small to attain national and international targets for 2020.

Climate change means that buildings must greatly reduce their energy consumption. It is however paradoxical that climate mitigation in Denmark has created negative energy and indoor climate problems in housing that may be made worse by climate change. A literature review has been carried out of housing schemes where climate mitigation was sought through reduced space heating demand, and it is shown that extensive problems with overheating exist. A theoretical study of regulative and design strategies for climate mitigation in new build housing has therefore been carried out, and it is shown that reducing space heating with high levels of thermal insulation and passive solar energy results in overheating and a growing demand for cooling.

Climate change is expected to reduce space heating and increase cooling demand in housing. An analysis of new build housing using passive solar energy as a climate mitigation strategy has therefore been carried out in relation to future climate change scenarios. It is shown that severe indoor comfort problems can occur, questioning the relevance of passive solar energy as a climate mitigation strategy. In conclusion, a theoretical study of the interplay between climate adaptation and mitigation strategies is carried out, with a cross-disciplinary focus on users, passive design and active technologies. It is shown that the cumulative use of these strategies can create an adaptation buffer, thus eliminating problems with overheating and reducing energy consumption. New build housing should therefore be designed in relation to both current and future climate scenarios to show that the climate mitigation strategies ensure climate adaptation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption process of high performance building technologies, including alternative wall systems, in hot‐humid climates. Challenges faced by homebuilders adopting high performance building technologies, and resulting energy performance are discussed.

The paper is a case study of four homebuilders using high performance building technologies, including advanced framing, panelised and modular. For each homebuilder, a baseline and a demonstration house were evaluated for energy performance and technology adoption. Homebuilders were interviewed to identify implementation challenges and barriers faced during the construction process.

The advanced framing, modular and panelised houses used 50 percent, 42 percent, and 35 percent less energy when compared to the traditional stick‐built. Further, the modular appeared to have the greatest opportunity to boost performance for least cost. Participating builders identified cost as the top constraint to a wide adoption of high performance criteria, followed by a slow learning curve and the lack of proper marketing channels to transition from construction to sale.

Several limitations of the research restrict generalisation of findings: results are based on a small sample of homebuilders; and results reflect energy performance in a hot and humid climate. It is likely that relative energy usage will change as the size, scope, and design complexity of the common element changes.

Findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of the usability of high performance technologies and ease the transition towards implementing high performance criteria into every builder company's culture.

Refurbishing houses is considered a key measure to improve the energy efficiency of the built environment. However, little is known about the implementation and outcome of housing renovation for energy upgrades in the Vietnamese practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the energy performance of the current housing stock in Vietnam and the potential to reduce energy use in households.

The paper is based on a survey with 153 respondents in three major climatic regions of Vietnam. The survey focusses on building characteristics, environmental performance, energy performance and refurbishment activities. Data collected from the survey were statistically analysed to give insight into the current performance of the housing stock and its energy saving potential.

This paper concludes that building design and construction, particularly the building envelope, have a significant influence on the occupants’ comfort. However, the energy consumption in houses is not statistically associated with building design and indoor environment. It is suggested that financial status and occupants’ behaviour currently have a strong influence on the household energy use. The survey also showed that refurbishment improves the housing performance, especially if improving the indoor environment was one of the drivers.

There are very few studies on energy use in households in Vietnam, especially with regards to actual energy consumption. This paper brings insights into the actual energy consumption and reveals the “performance gap” in Vietnamese housing stock.

This paper aims to discuss the nexus between two societal (sub) systems of housing and energy supply to shed new light on the key institutional barriers to socio-technical energy transition in the built environment. The key research question is to explore if and how key patterns of institutional elements associated with energy retrofit and energy supply are combined, co-evolved and played out in the housing system, leading to an alternative energy transition pathway in the built environment.

A comparative case study of residential buildings in the Swiss cities of Basel and Sion is conducted to map retrofitting policies and practices in a wide range of buildings (e.g. multi-family and single family) that each requires a particular constellation of institutions, actors and artefacts.

The key finding is that the regulative institutions support energy transition in each urban form/housing type. However, the co-evolution with normative and cultural-cognitive institutions does not play out very clearly in the housing system. One reason is that the norms and cultures are deeply rooted in the practices exercised by business community and households and therefore they need a longer time frame to adapt to a new regulation.

The policies and actions to increase the rate of housing retrofit are discussed in the specific socio-political context of Switzerland. Therefore, the results of this study might not be applied in other contexts with different conditions, limiting the possibility for analytical generalization. The case study can generate only context-specific knowledge, which might be valuable only to cities with similar conditions. This paper addresses theoretical, methodological and policy challenges in scaling-up retrofit projects by taking a holistic and integrated approach to the systems of housing and energy supply.

It would have been necessary to find out how the introduction and enforcement of new energy policies and regulations (regulative institutions) have changed the norms and building practices (normative institutions) used by actors from housing industry and the attitudes and energy consumption behaviour of the households (cultural-cognitive institutions). Nevertheless, information about normative and cultural-cognitive institutions require more primary data in the form of interviews with organizations and households, respectively, which goes beyond the scope and resources of this study.

Insights from different strands of literature (institutions and sustainability transition) are combined to understand if and how retrofitting practices go along with other elements of urban sustainability including architectural, technical, socio-cultural and economic factors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the buyer awareness and acceptance of environmental and energy efficiency measures in the New Zealand residential property markets. This study aims to provide a greater understanding of consumer behaviour in the residential property market in relation to green housing issues

The paper is based on an extensive survey of Christchurch real estate offices and was designed to gather data on the factors that were considered important by buyers in the residential property market. The survey was designed to allow these factors to be analysed on a socio‐economic basis and to compare buyer behaviour based on property values.

The results show that regardless of income levels, buyers still consider that the most important factor in the house purchase decision is the location of the property and price. Although the awareness of green housing issues and energy efficiency in housing is growing in the residential property market, it is only a major consideration for young and older buyers in the high income brackets and is only of some importance for all other buyer sectors of the residential property market. Many of the voluntary measures introduced by Governments to improve the energy efficiency of residential housing are still not considered important by buyers, indicating that a more mandatory approach may have to be undertaken to improve energy efficiency in the established housing market, as these measures are not valued by the buyer.

The paper confirms the variations in real estate buyer behaviour across the full range of residential property markets and the acceptance and awareness of green housing issues and measures. These results would be applicable to most established and transparent residential property markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine current trends in energy efficiency ratings and consider their likely impact on the Australian housing market.

The research is yet to be conducted; however a mixed method is proposed which is grounded on the theoretical model of consumer behaviour within housing markets. This model has been tested and demonstrated to be useful in predicting buyer behaviour.

Established theories of buyer perception indicate the introduction of energy efficiency rating systems will have an effect on the level of house prices.

This research is focussed on housing in Australia but also has implications for other global housing markets which are addressing sustainability.

Outputs of this research have implications for policy makers, real estate agents and valuers.

Increasing energy costs is likely to restructure the way housing markets operate with regard to sustainability and energy efficiency rating systems and also how they are understood.

This research will be in the Australian context utilising international modeling. As mandatory energy efficiency ratings have not been introduced, this research will be original.

In response to the growing demand for zero-energy housing, today's home needs not only to be energy-efficient, but also to provide part of its own energy requirements. The energy efficiency may be improved by applying high thermal performance building envelope and passive energy and environmental systems to housing. Micro-power can be generated through the use of renewable energy technologies. This paper is aimed at providing a comprehensive guideline on the design techniques and approaches to the delivery of net zero-energy healthy housing in view of the ÉcoTerra house, which won the Canadian federal government's EQuilibrium sustainable housing competition. The house was built in Eastman in the province of Quebec and it is currently open to the general public in order to sharpen the consumers' awareness of commercially available net zero-energy healthy housing today.

In debates related to energy poverty, the link to questions of residential segregation remains somewhat peripheral. Because, usually, only energy-poor households are at the focus and residential mobility is not addressed, the interdependencies between households’ energy costs and the residential segregation of cities remain out of sight. Concern that energy efficiency measures could foster socio-spatial segregation in cities has recently emerged in Germany. If only households with higher incomes can afford housing with high energy efficiency standards, whereas low income households tend to choose non-refurbished but, in sum, more affordable housing stock, an increasing concentration of poor households in poor housing conditions would result. German energy efficiency and CO2 reduction policies are relatively insensitive to such questions.

Using survey data from a small shrinking city in Germany, we explore how energy costs are interrelated with residential location decisions and, thus, with segregation processes and patterns. Shrinking cities represent an interesting case because, here, a decreasing demand for housing stimulates residential mobility and paves the way for dynamic reconfigurations of socio-spatial patterns.

We found that energy-related aspects of homes play a role in location decisions. Low income households seek to minimize housing costs in general, paying specific attention to heating systems, thermal insulation and costs. Resulting segregation effects depend very much on where affordable and, at the same time, energy-efficient housing stock is spatially concentrated in cities. These findings should be taken into consideration for future policies on energy in existing dwellings.