A conceptual framework for applying energy efficiency in the residential sector

Energy availability and its price with political and environmental issues have raised attention to energy efficiency and carbon reduction programs. Even in countries like USA, in which most sectors are governed by private parties, the government invests on energy efficiency projects and researches in this area. The role of regulatory authorities is stronger in European countries. After applying energy efficiency programs on large industrial loads, now they have started looking at residential sector as a significant amount of energy is used in this sector. In this paper, we evaluate energy efficiency programs in the residential sector in different developed countries, and propose a conceptual model based on different tasksthat should be done rather than different organizations that are involved in the process. The advantage of this model is that it can be applied to different countries with different organizational structures with a few modifications, and can provide models with different details based on available information. In the proposed framework, residential home rating technique is used to rank building, and select target buildings for applying efficiency programs in different stages of the program, and provides a good signal for valuing building. Moreover, new buildings should satisfy some minimum energy efficiency criteria. To show the performance of the proposed conceptual model, we fit available systems in 5 different countries into our model to show its independence of a specific country or regulatory body. Results show the proposed model provides a systematic way to create a model based on required tasks in the system.

Keywords:

energy efficiency , carbon reduction , conceptual framework , building rating , residential sector