Profiling Occupant Behaviour in Italian Households for enhanced building simulation input: Insights into a Survey-based Investigation

The stochastic nature of the human-building interaction is an established key driver of uncertainty when it comes to the prediction of energy consumptions in buildings. To retrieve behaviour-related data on a large scale, and to avoid the setup of complex in-field monitoring strategies, survey-based investigations can be a useful tool to obtain information directly from the occupants and to profile occupancy patterns as well as energy-related daily activities in households. This paper presents a selection of outcomes of a survey based investigation aimed at exploring (i) temperature preferences based on different household characteristics and (ii) daily energy-related activity and occupancy profiles in the context of residential buildings in Northern Italy.