La consommation énergétique : de la résidence à la ville. Aspects sociaux, techniques et économiques – ENERGIHAB

This pluridisciplinary project relates to the Parisian region and develops innovating investigation methods resting on two major approaches:
? One of them, socio-economic, concerns the differentiate energy consumption modes involved with habitat, according to the social, demographic and economic characteristics of users, the types of habitat they occupy, the investment modes of their place of abode and of their building and the residential sectors. This approach has been carried out on the basis of secondary processes of national investigation already conducted (National investigations on the INSEE housing), completed by an ad hoc investigation which we conducted with 2000 households in the Parisian region.
? The other one, social and technical, was conducted with 60 households. Its aim on the one hand is to put in evidence the ways households see their energy consumption from sociological interviews. And on the other hand, it observes actual energy practices in continuous time for a week, thanks to diaries documented by the households themselves and in situ readings of their consumption and of their energy practices by sensors installed at home.

At this stage of research four results ought to be pointed out:
? The success of a complex and reproducible methodological protocol.
? The construction of a typology of national consumers highlighting the role of positions in the life cycle.
? Highlighting the existence of four types of inhabitants/energy consumers as DIY addicts.
? The success of instrumentation showing that it is possible to collect relevant data by using general public materials at reasonable costs

The ENERGIHAB project is a fundamental and exploratory research project coordinated by the Mixed research unit 7218 LAVUE. It also associates the LSPI laboratory of the Scientific and Technical Centre of Building, as well as the ENERBAT and EDF ICAME laboratories.

Taking into account the complexity of the methodological approach, a major portion of the collective effort was dedicated to the implementation of the experimental protocol and to data formatting. Hence the delay in the publications at that stage of the project. However, the members of the team have been called upon on numerous occasions to exhibit the content and the progress of research in international events. To date, the team may rely on 10 conferences in national and international scientific colloquia, 1 popularisation conference and 1 book chapter

This research proposal lies within the context of the recommendations made by the Grenelle environment round table (Grenelle de l'Environnement) which highlighted the need to improve the thermal performance of housing in France by 2020. It aims to define the methods to be used to construct and organise the relations between citizens and energy in housing that is spatially contextualised (city centre, low rise suburban housing, social housing complexes, peri-urban sector, etc.) and architecturally differentiated (single family homes, multiple rented or co-owned central housing units , large linear and tower block complexes, etc.). The case studies will be localised in the Ile-de-France region. The project is based on the hypothesis that the energy consumption of households in their homes and during their daily travel movements refers to complex socio-spatial behaviour patterns and economic costs that allow the issue of housing to be analysed on the level of the district and the city. These behaviour patterns will be examined from the point of view of the relationship to energy that inhabitants have on the scale of their residences, as well as by analysing their daily travel movements and consumption practices within the urban context of the Ile-de-France region. Carried out by a small but highly motivated team, this multidisciplinary research develops innovative investigation methods that aim to associate energy practices in the home and those resulting from travel movements in terms of consumption cost and intensity. The methodological approach comprises two sections:  A socio-economic section using quantitative analysis methods based on the secondary treatment of national surveys (particularly the national housing survey (Enquête Nationale sur le Logement)), and an ad hoc survey that we shall carry out on 2,000 Ile-de-France households.  A socio- technical section that aims to compare the subjective appreciation of energy consumption made by households with reality. This will be based on observing the residential and urban practices of sixty households. It will include sociological interviews, log books filled in by the households themselves and in situ measurements of their energy consumption. These approaches will result in an improved understanding of household energy consumption practices and costs as well as the development of measurement tools. The crossover of these three dimensions will permit the construction of reliable indicators that will contribute to the creation of a household energy consumption observatory able to associate residential practices with the technical performances of different scales of buildings.