Enabling stakeholder engagement in energy retrofitting: an open-access platform for detached-houses in the north of Sweden

The overall purpose of the research is to support stakeholder engagement in the transitions towards sustainable energy retrofitting in detached-houses.

Stakeholders in the retrofit of detached-houses includes private house owners, municipal energy advisors and companies who carry out the retrofit.

Previous case studies have identified that stakeholders lack tailored energy retrofitting measures taking account of specific conditions of individual detached-houses.

The research, therefore, will transfer big-data from Swedish Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Swedish National Land Survey into a consistent database.

The generated database and machine-learning algorithms are integrated into an open-access platform, which extracts case-specific knowledge regarding installed energy system and actual energy use.

Without requiring the knowledge of advanced energy simulation, the open-access platform enables stakeholders to compute energy saving of alternative retrofitting measures tailored to their specific building physics.

By doing so, the research offers a method to open up new opportunities of stakeholder engagement with sustainable energy retrofitting. Three workshops will be organized in the research, which allow for the dissemination of results to stakeholders.

This project conducts Swedish context research, but methodologies and results are transferable and applicable to international geographic realms.