RESIDENTIAL SECTOR ENERGY-SAVING INVESTMENT STUDY BASED ON BAYESIAN BELIEF NETWORK

The European Union set a long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% below the level of 1990 by 2050. Energy-efficient investment in the residential sector could serve this purpose to a large extent as the housing sector is one of the major sources of energy consumption and carbon emission in the EU. Energy-saving investment in the residential sector could achieve not only energy consumption reduction but also improve living comfort. However, energy-saving measures are not adopted widely, even though many of the measures are proven to be economically viable. This situation creates uncertainly about achieving the greenhouse gas emission reduction goal. How to effectively promote energy-saving is a problem remaining to be solved. A better understanding of the adoption influences is vital for understanding energy saving investment behaviour. This study aims to study the influences of households’ decision-making in energy-saving investment in the Netherlands. Both economic and non-economic influences will be studied. Besides, major motivators and barriers will be identified. The study process can be described as follows. First, relevant data is acquired from the WoON (WoonOnderzoek Nederland: Residential Research Netherlands) database. Then, the data will be analysed using the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) in the software program GeNIe. The characteristics of residential house owners belonging to the categories of energy efficiency adopters and non-adopters will be identified and presented. The analysis results can be used for gaining insights on how to increase energy efficiency investment effectively.