Fast-tracking Low-Energy Use via Retrofit (FLEUR)

在英国，几乎三分之一的总能源消耗都来自家庭。改造住宅和大幅减少能源使用所需的材料、产品和技术在市场上是现成的。减少住宅的能源使用和相应的碳排放减少有助于稳定大气中的碳浓度，减少其对气候变化的影响，并减轻环境中潜在的灾难性和不可逆转的变化。旨在减少家庭能源使用的改造也可以为居住者带来许多好处，从节约能源到改善热舒适和室内空气质量。尽管低能耗改造有这些明显的好处，而且各种政府政策和奖励措施也旨在鼓励这种改造，但这种改造的比率仍然很低，即使涉及到成本效益措施。在攻读博士学位期间，我研究了如何鼓励英国房主进行低能耗改造。分析得出了一系列有趣的结果：(i)政府的建筑政策主要侧重于实现节能的技术经济方面，而忽略了作出改造决定的家庭复杂的情感、个人和社会背景。建筑研究和政策倾向于把改造决定描绘成在某一特定时间点发生的情况，此时房主会权衡不同选择的收益和成本。在现实中，这样的决策需要时间来发展和成熟，并且可能存在这样的决策过程会受到影响的几个时间点。我博士的见解是解决这些基本挑战。将博士的研究见解转化为政策建议的工作已经开始，但有可能进一步与政府和非政府组织的代表接触，以使工作立足于英国的政治和实际背景。我计划与来自不同组织的多位相关专家进行合作和知识交流。这些机构包括政府组织、建筑供应链企业和各种旨在推动可持续发展变革的中介组织。这种合作将使研究受益于有关专家的实际和实地知识，从而使其在现实世界中具有相关性和有用性。研究和合作活动的产出和见解，如果得到好评，将对相关组织有用，有更高的机会在这些组织的相关活动中被采用，因此，对人们在改造房屋时对房屋的处理产生影响。该项目预计将取得以下成果：制定有用且完善的政策，鼓励英国房主采用低能耗住宅改造，这些政策以可靠的定性分析为基础，并由政府和非政府行为者的专家反馈形成。结果将被可视化，并以一种与许多不同受众相关且可访问的方式呈现：(i)学术研究人员；（ii）商业、能源和工业战略部（BEIS）等政策参与者；（三）为促进住房部门可持续性变革而开展活动的非政府行为者，如国家能源基金会或节能信托基金。

Almost a third of the total energy use in the UK is attributed to the energy used in homes. The materials, products and technologies necessary to retrofit a dwelling and achieve a substantial reduction in energy use are readily available on the market. The reduction in energy use in dwellings and the associated reduction in carbon emissions can help to stabilise the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, reduce its influence on climate change, and mitigate potentially disastrous and irreversible changes in the environment. Retrofit aimed to reduce energy use in homes can also bring numerous benefits to the occupants, ranging from energy savings to the improved thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Despite these obvious benefits of low-energy retrofit, as well as various governmental policies and incentives aimed to encourage it, the rate of such retrofit remains persistently low, even when it concerns cost-beneficial measures. During my PhD I investigated how UK homeowners can be encouraged to carry out low-energy retrofit. The analysis yielded a set of interesting results: (i) Governmental building policy primarily focuses on the techno-economic aspects of achieving energy savings, and ignores the complex emotional, personal and socially-bound context of one's home, where retrofit decisions are made. (ii) Building research and policy tend to portray retrofit decisions as taking place at a given point in time, when homeowners weigh the benefits and costs of different options. In reality, such decisions take time to develop and mature, and there might be several points in time when such decision processes can be influenced. The insights from my PhD move towards addressing these fundamental challenges. The work to convert the PhD research insights into policy suggestions has started, but there is the potential to further engage with representatives from governmental and non-governmental organisations to ground the work in the political and practical context of the UK. I plan to collaborate and engage in knowledge exchange with a number of relevant experts from a variety of organisations. These range from governmental organisations to construction supply chain businesses and various intermediary organisations operating to advance change towards sustainability. The collaboration will allow the research to benefit from the practical and on-the-ground knowledge of relevant experts and, thus, make it relevant and useful in the real world. The outputs and insights from the research and collaborative activities, if well received, will be of use to relevant organisations, have a higher chance to be adopted in relevant activities of these organisations and, consequently, have an effect on what people are doing with their homes when they retrofit them.The project anticipates the following outcome: useful and well-formulated policies to encourage adoption of low-energy home retrofit among UK homeowners, grounded in sound qualitative analysis and shaped by the expert feedback from governmental and non-governmental actors. Results will be visualised and presented in a way that is relevant and accessible to a number of different audiences: (i) academic researchers; (ii) policy actors such as the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS); and (iii) non-governmental actors who operate to advance change towards sustainability in the housing sector, such as National Energy Foundation (NEF) or Energy Saving Trust (EST).