Energy ratings as drivers of energy sufficiency in residential buildings: A comprehensive review and future directions
Marta J.N. Oliveira Panão
Abstract
A balanced approach that integrates renewables, energy efficiency, and energy sufficiency is essential for achieving climate neutrality and sustainability. Residential buildings are particularly significant in this context, as occupants' lifestyles shape energy demand. The review starts with an overview of energy sufficiency in building science. It then narrows its focus to investigate how energy ratings enhance energy sufficiency in residential buildings. This is done by addressing three key questions: what examples of energy sufficiency actions are referenced in the literature, and how can they be categorized; how building energy codes act as drivers of energy sufficiency; and whether energy ratings encourage the selection of more appropriately sized appliances. These questions are explored through various discussion topics, including a comprehensive list of energy sufficiency actions, the behavioral factors influencing energy excessiveness or insufficiency, and the impact of dwelling and household size on energy use. The conclusions are organized into ten key findings that underscore essential aspects of advancing energy sufficiency through future research and energy policy, emphasizing the need to rethink building codes and appliances energy rating. These findings include reinforcing the role of energy sufficiency alongside the energy-efficiency first principle, tailoring energy services to user needs while exploring alternatives to minimize unwanted use, expanding action examples beyond common practices and quantifying their impacts to strengthen implementation, using operational ratings and the gap ratio to identify areas for improvement and behaviors contributing to excessiveness, addressing unregulated energy end-uses, establishing per capita metrics for comprehensive evaluation, ensuring progressive efficiency in building codes and appliance energy ratings to prevent increases in demand due to excessive size, and developing benchmarking to address regional disparities and resource constraints.