A review of occupant energy feedback research: Opportunities for methodological fusion at the intersection of experimentation, analytics, surveys and simulation

• Published in: Applied energy 2018-05, Vol.218 (C), p.304-316
• Main Authors: Khosrowpour, Ardalan, Jain, Rishee K., Taylor, John E., Peschiera, Gabriel, Chen, Jiayu, Gulbinas, Rimas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Building energy efficiency; Energy feedback; Occupant behavior; Research methods
• ISSN: 0306-2619; 1872-9118
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.02.148

•Occupant behavior can have a substantial impact on energy consumption in buildings.•Feedback programs have been developed to make energy consumption more visible.•We critically review energy feedback literature that has been published to date.•We identify experiments, analytics, surveys and simulation as four key methods used.•Our meta-analysis reveals gaps and opportunities for methodological fusion. Occupants are integral elements of a building ecosystem and their behavior can have a substantial impact on energy consumption in buildings. A wide range of energy feedback programs have been developed to make energy consumption more visible and interpretable to occupants and help them learn how to control and save energy. In this paper, we conduct a critical review of the literature related to energy feedback and identify four key methodological approaches to designing and studying energy feedback programs: experiments, analytics, surveys and simulation. Our meta-analysis reveals five research gaps and opportunities for future methodological fusion at the intersection between such approaches, including the analytics-survey, experiments-analytics, experiments-analytics-surveys, simulation-experiments and analytics-simulation interfaces. Future research at these crucial interfaces could provide the deeper understanding necessary to develop energy feedback programs that yield substantial and persistent energy savings.