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• The paper has a focus on energy consumption habits and trends using statistical methods. • Occupants' behavior is monitored using smart metering system and awareness surveys. • The impact of a serious game on occupant's behavior is evaluated. The paper has a focus on energy consumption habits, trends and intervention strategies in residential buildings, mainly through the serious game approach with a combination of direct consumer feedback through smart metering. More than 150 homes in France and Spain have been involved in the research experiment and the consumption habits of approximately 50 homes were deeply analyzed. The applied methods, processes, results and findings of the monitoring data analysis are presented in the paper with two aims. First, consumption profiles and trends were determined for apartment homes with regard to heating, domestic hot water and electric consumption. Second, the impact of a serious game experiment was assessed comparing energy consumption, indoor air temperature and users' habits (based on questionnaires) before and after launching the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Overheating regulations and calculation methods in 26 European countries were compared. • Most of the existing calculation methods are outdated and do not fit climate-proof buildings. • France requires a mixed-mode operation of naturally ventilated households. • The UK developed a heatwave-based calculation approach. • Comfort-based, multi-zonal, and time-integrated calculation approaches are needed. With the ongoing significance of overheating calculations in the residential building sector, building codes such as the European Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) are essential for harmonizing the indicators and performance thresholds. This paper investigates Europe's overheating calculation methods, indicators, and thresholds and evaluates their ability to address climate change and heat events. e study aims to identify the suitability of existing overheating calculation methods and propose recommendations for the EPBD. The study results provide a cross-sectional overview of twenty-six European countries. The most influential overheating calculation criteria are listed the best approaches are ranked. The paper provides a thorough comparative assessment and recommendations to align current calculations with climate-sensitive metrics. The results suggest a framework and key performance indicators that are comfort-based, multi-zonal, and time-integrated to calculate overheating and modify the EU's next building energy efficiency regulations. The results can help policymakers and building professionals to develop the next overheating calculation framework and approach for the future development of climate-proof and resilient residential buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details a manual calibration of a 132 zones, highly monitored 5 434 m2 office building located in France. The calibration is conducted over one year of simulation at a five minute time-step. The model is mostly fed with input files containing measured data for each simulation time-step. First simulation results show that the model cannot be considered as being calibrated considering usual guidelines based on statistical indicators calculated on monthly energy consumption. Instead of going through a classical tuning process to match measured and simulated monthly energy consumption data, the choice was made to focus on explaining those discrepancies using available building information and monitoring data. A first dynamical heating and cooling powers analysis has been made, resulting in good correlation with measured values and explaining most of the discrepancies previously noticed, followed by a dynamical temperature analysis performed at the zone scale, and completed by a global statistical analysis at the building scale for the 132 zones of the building. Results showed very good agreement between measured and simulated temperature values with 90% of data points ranging between −1.72 °C and 2.02 °C of error. This demonstrate that a model that at first glance does not perform well considering particular statistical indicators can show an accurate dynamical behavior and a good performance when other variables and performance criteria are considered. This is followed by a discussion of the possible model improvements along with the limitations of statistical analysis compared to dynamic physical analysis for calibration performance assessment. The paper concludes with several proposals to improve the guidelines for calibration procedures involving the use of detailed monitoring data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both the US and French building sectors, significant efforts have been undertaken to reduce the environmental impacts of new constructions notably their fossil energy consumption and related carbon emissions. This paper summarizes the results of a comparative evaluation of optimal design specifications for office buildings for selected locations in both US and France using life cycle cost analysis approach. First, an overview of both the US and French approaches for developing building energy efficiency standards and design of high performance buildings is outlined. Then, a general approach for design optimization of energy efficient office buildings is presented. Finally, selected results of the optimal analysis are discussed. In particular, it is found that optimizing life cycle costs (LCC) resulted on average in 30% in primary energy savings for office buildings located in the US and 40% savings in France. However, it is found that LCC-based optimal building designs do not meet the French energy efficiency RT 2012 standard. When accounting for typical operating conditions, photovoltaic (PV) panels are needed in order to comply with the RT 2012 required thresholds for the total primary energy consumption of the office buildings located in the French cities considered in the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]