Efficiency for Sustainability—Smart Energy Management in Social Housing

Abstract

An average energy consumption distribution in household at the worldwide level illustrates that more than three quarters of total consumption is contributed to room heating and almost 12% to water heating for all the living necessities. Although a slow fall of domestic energy consumption has occurred in the recent 20 years (from 1990 to 2011) with a regular decrease between ?1.2% and ?1.4%/year per dwelling as a result of a decrease income corresponding to the economic crisis in 2008, whereas energy prices for households has increase since 2004, the energy cost of paying especially for space heating and domestic hot water (DHW) supplying is still going up. At the EU level, the building sector including residential, commercial and other service buildings is regarded as the key to greater energy efficiency, because according to statistics the final energy consumption for building sector has taken the largest proportion about 40% until 2020, which is apparently higher than the share in transportation sector by 32% and industry sector by 24%. In the scope of the ongoing research and investigation on energy efficiency in residential fields and its impact on environment and climate, how to investigate smart energy management methods for the promotion of sustainable consumption and green living patterns has been already paid much attention, however it has to be studied further and thoroughly, especially among energy consumer groups whose energy costs have no or just little relevance or dependence on major income source, which leads to a lack of energy saving awareness by users. Energy consumers living in social housing buildings represent this kind of energy consumer group which receive the governmental relief fund as their family income in a great measure, they have different culture, educational and age backgrounds. This paper presents firstly some research results based on authors’ practical experiences on the projects about energy efficiency in social housing buildings in European countries, which is supposed to be introduced in the aspects of subjective and objective energy saving potentials. It is proposed to be able to provide valuable and referential advices exchange our experience on a sustainable development in affordable housing.