Energy Poverty Map: Online Survey System of the Indoor Environmental Quality for Energy Poverty in South Korea

As the energy poverty cannot afford the energy expenditure, their indoor environmental quality (IEQ) was affected by diverse problems from low energy efficient residential buildings. Thus, it is important to identify IEQ of energy poverty`s residential buildings to improve their well-being. However, there is no specific and diverse data on the IEQ of energy poverty in low-income housing in South Korea due to the difficulty of reaching many households and managing an amount of survey data. This study aims to establish an online survey system that provides the IEQ questionnaires and analyzes the IEQ data of energy poverty in low-income housing. In this study, we developed a web-based survey system and an energy poverty map. By using the system, a pilot survey was conducted in five cities in South Korea during the summer and winter seasons in 2020. Due to the difficulty to have easy access to the low-income village during the Covid-19, researchers have collaborated with Korean Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) who could be access to energy poverty dwellings. Through a pilot case study, NGO`s members have collected 600 dwellings data and descriptive statistical analysis was performed. The following analysis will be conducted through the accumulated database. First, future study will conduct a correlation analysis between the econometric and demographic characteristics of energy poverty using this database. In addition, future study measures should include expanding household data to identify a large enough number of user patterns that can be considered representative of energy poverty. Second, the energy poverty map can be used to identify neighborhoods with low income, social weakness, and poor buildings in the policy decision-making process.