Intelligent decision support system for home energy retrofit adoption

Despite the well-established benefits of home energy retrofits (HER), its adoption has faced huge challenges. Though homeowners typically depend on energy practitioners for HER advice, previous work by the researchers has identified the inadequateness of such information as a barrier. Using an earlier developed information model, an energy retrofit intelligent decision support system (ERIDSS), that integrates expert knowledge with quantitative information to provide homeowners with accurate information for decision-making, was developed. This paper identifies the key components of the proposed ERIDSS, develops rules for relevant energy retrofit expert knowledge to be employed in the knowledge-based system of the proposed ERIDSS, develops the ERIDSS for decision-making for home energy retrofits, and demonstrates the application of the ERIDSS using a pilot system on two test homes. The quantitative information was obtained from published sources and the U.S. Department of Energy's cost database, and the expert knowledge was obtained through the application of the modified Delphi technique and job shadowing of energy auditors and retrofit contractors. The research contributes to improving the adoption of energy retrofits by homeowners, assisting industry practitioners with the corroboration of knowledge/information they provide to homeowners in order to reduce homeowner bias, providing a good understanding of available implicit domain knowledge through the development of six knowledge-based modules, and the development of a system and approach that may be replicated in other domains.