Effect of end-user awareness and individual heat metering in a social housing building in Mediterranean climate

The combined effect of individual metering and end-user awareness about own energy consumptions has been proven to be an effective and low-cost driver to increase the energy efficiency of buildings, by preventing the adoption of energy inefficient behaviors. On the other hand, in some contexts, individual metering systems and end-user awareness could lead to undesirable effects, such as the penalization of comfort in favor of energy saving. In the literature, there are few studies concerning the estimation of the combined effect of end-user awareness and individual metering on energy consumptions and thermal comfort, especially in contexts at risk of energy poverty such as social housing. This paper aims to evaluate the effects of an informative campaign delivered in a social housing building of 9 apartments in a Mediterranean climate, where indirect heat accounting systems are installed. For this purpose, the daily energy consumption and the average daily indoor temperatures of the 9 dwellings were analyzed before and after the implementation of a specific awareness campaign based on indirect feedback. The results showed a statistically significant reduction of the energy consumption equal to 3.80% in the building after the campaign, without any significant variation in the average indoor temperatures.