Occupant influence on energy consumption in single-family dwellings.

The objective of this study is to provide an explanatory model for total energy consumption in electrically heated single-family dwellings, based on publicly available socio-economic records in Sweden. An earlier study based on 3,200 houses, divided into 93 groups of similar design, has shown that energy consumption for one house may be twice that of another house in the same area, built to an identical design. The problem is: how much of this scatter depends on occupancy behaviour? The present study is based on 78 similar houses, electrically heated, built as one group in 1969. Data have been collected for a 10 year period from public records on individual occupants and houses. The explanatory ability of the model turns out to below, as only about 20% of the total spread in electricity consumption between households can be accounted for. On the other hand, it has been found that half the spread in electricity consumption between households can be explained by total (hot and cold) water consumption.