Explaining domestic energy consumption - The comparative contribution of building factors, socio-demographics, behaviours and attitudes

The findings indicate that whilst people use energy, it is physical building characteristics that largely determine how much is used. This finding, together with the relatively greater time-invariant nature of building characteristics underlines their importance when focusing on seeking to understand residential energy consumption at a stock level. Retrofitting and behaviour change initiatives remain important avenues to reduce consumption, as suggested through the lower energy consumption associated with full double-glazing and shorter heating season. However, the dominance of building size also indicates that living in appropriately sized buildings is of great importance for energy consumption. The results also indicate that more than half of the variability in energy consumption cannot be explained, even when using a wide range of predictors. The paper also discusses the need to collect better occupant-related variables to give a correct representation of the impact of behaviour, such as heating demand temperatures. Furthermore, choices about dwelling characteristics could also be seen as a type of behaviour, even though it cannot be modelled in a cross-sectional analysis as used in this study.