Building energy consumption under occupants’ behavior uncertainty in pre and post-renovation scenarios: a case study in Italy

In Europe, the energy renovation of existing building stock is a great opportunity to significantly reduce consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reach European sustainability targets. this framework, simulations (BES) tools are very useful in verifying retrofit measures' effectiveness compliance with national standards. However, an inaccurate numerical prediction, so-called “performance gap” between measured performance, often obtained, mainly due inherent uncertainty model input. Due its stochastic nature, occupants’ behavior (OB) considered among key contributors gap. most recent Building Energy Model (BEM) approaches adopt deterministic hourly-defined profiles for characterizing OB, thus neglecting related uncertainty. work, impact OB uncertainties on (EC) prediction evaluated by adopting Karhunen-Loève Expansion sampling technique, used randomly perturb such as heating setpoint (HS), internal thermal loads (IL), windows opening (NV). Two BEMs typical Italian residential pre- post-renovation scenarios calibrated real EC data. The results demonstrated that HS has highest all scenarios. Moreover, higher performance building, especially IL NV patterns.