Energy behaviour-driven strategies for the effective renovation of the public housing stock

The overall aim of the research is to contribute to promote urban regeneration through the energy renovation of residential buildings. The goal is to show, on the one side, the relevance of the occupant behaviour, at present seldomly included in the consideration of the measures to be adopted to renovate the buildings; on the other side, the relationship among stakeholders involved in the renovation process. The specific aim is to assess the impact of household behaviour on energy-related policies and practices tailored at reducing the energy consumption and at increasing energy efficiency of buildings. The outcomes shall support decision-makers, planners and stakeholders to design and implement energy policy instruments and strategies to regenerate the existing built environment, with a focus on the residential sector. Despite the limited size of the Italian public housing stock, due to the favourable situation of public housing providers, having an exclusive role in building management, and similar regional regulations and procedures to comply with, the public housing sector is considered as the case study for this research. Chapter 2, 3 and 5 make an extensive use of literature review as main methods to investigate energy behaviour models in all the most relevant disciplines dealing with behavioural studies, the policy frameworks, the determinants of household energy behaviour, the strategies to promote behavioural change and the main characteristics of the Italian public housing stock in terms of roles and responsibilities. Chapter 4 describes quantitative research methods as statistical analysis on the census data, and qualitative research method for the analysis of the questionnaires resulting from the survey. Chapter 6 applies building energy simulation to investigate the impact of behaviour and to build scenarios to inform decision-makers, while in Chapter 7 a multi-criteria decision-making tool is adopted, and new solutions suggested.