The Energy Performance Certification: A tool for smarter cities?

One of the existing tools that could help creating smart cities is the Energy Performance
Certification (EPC) of residential buildings, by introducing energy efficiency as a comparative
criterion for real-estate purchase choices, influencing real-estate market value, stimulating
energy saving investments, moving the housing market towards greater energy efficiency and
creating comprehensive databases which are fundamental for shaping smart strategies on urban,
regional and national levels. The impact on potential buyers or tenants is crucial in order to
reach these goals but EPC’s results, in their actual form, do not help raise people awareness:
often distant from reality, overestimating consumption, they usually result is a general
misunderstanding and misuse of the document.
This study aims at verifying that the actual calculation method used in certification could
approach real building consumption, by using additional data on occupant behaviour and
household characteristics. It first presents the concepts behind smart cities, then an overview of
the uncertainties that weight on the Belgian certification calculation method parameters. It also
presents variations that could be applied to the EPC calculation method in order to add
behavioural parameters… inspired from case studies of buildings.