Keynote Address
Household energy efficiency and health: Narrowing the performance gap with the help of energy epidemiology
Energy efficiency programmes and policies in the UK have reduced residential energy demand and improved health and comfort. However, uptake and efficacies of energy efficiency programmes must be radically improved if UK carbon emission targets are to be achieved. What lessons have we learnt over the last 40 years, and what are the essential tools and policies required to deliver a healthy and energy efficient building stock? Can research methods from other sectors such as health epidemiology and data science better help building scientists understand this complex socio-technical problem? The presentation will draw on examples of research from the RCUK Centre for Energy Epidemiology, analysing, energy, building and people data from millions of homes, and modelling energy use in the English housing stock. Current research bringing together health and energy data and the new “IEA Annex 70 – Building Energy Epidemiology: Analysis of real building energy use at scale”, will be described.